Javascript regex syntax error trying to match URL causes unexpected token ^

Question

I'm trying to capture the text in between /s in a URL in Javascript. In the Regex tester I can successfully do that using

[^/]*

and when passed something like

/foo/bar/

it returns foo and bar as matches (which is what I want). In my javascript (node.js?) I am trying to use this regex as

var match = req.url.match ([^/]*);

but I get the error

SyntaxError: Unexpected token ^

How to I capture this regex in Javascript?

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-29 17:17:32Z

3

Better to use split I think:

'/foo/bar/'.split('/').filter(Boolean)
//=> ["foo", "bar"]

To get 1st element:

'/foo/bar/'.split('/').filter(Boolean)[0]
//=> "foo"

answered Mar 29, 2014 at 17:17

anubhava

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2 Comments

not so much better, but thanks for the .filter(Boolean) suggestion - that's really neat one

@alex: Better in the sense that it avoid use of regex.

xdazz · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-29 17:22:55Z

1

You need delimiters for the regex literal, also with the g(global) modifier:

var match = req.url.match(/[^/]+/g);

Change * to + to avoid matching empty strings.

answered Mar 29, 2014 at 17:15

xdazz

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Niet the Dark Absol · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-29 17:16:40Z

1

You forgot the slashes that make a regex literal:

var match = req.url.match(/[^\/]*/g);

Note that you need to escape the slash in your regex!

answered Mar 29, 2014 at 17:16

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