Using regex to split()

Question

I've been trying to get a regular expression to work for my code for a while and am wondering if anyone knows a better way.

I've got a big chunk of text to parse and want to split it into an array based on the lines. This would be straightforward, right? Using regex:

var re:RegExp = /\n/;    
arr = content.split(re);

Easy. But I also want to only split on lines that do not have a space after them. I figured I'd use the \S character to match anything with a non-space character after the \n.

var re:RegExp = /\n\S/;    
arr = content.split(re);

However, this now removes the first letter of every line I'm splitting (because it's matching those letters).

What's the best way to:

Ignore the spaces by using a caret (I tried something like /\n^\' '/ but no luck)?
Not lose that \S character when splitting the string into an array?

raina77ow · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-29 22:27:26Z

3

Use lookahead in your pattern (so \S symbol won't be consumed as a split separator):

var re:RegExp = /\n(?=\S)/;    
arr = content.split(re);

answered Sep 29, 2015 at 22:27

raina77ow

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1 Comment

Olin Kirkland Over a year ago

I appreciate your solution! This answer works really well.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:58:24Z

1

Additionally to raina77ow answer (using positive lookahead with \S), you can also use a negative lookahead with \s:

var re:RegExp = /\n(?!\s)/;    
arr = content.split(re);

Regular expression visualization

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:58

CommunityBot

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answered Sep 29, 2015 at 23:03

Federico Piazza

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