Unexpected token error in RegEx

Question

I am trying to use a global modifier to replace all instances of below but I keep on getting an error

Function

var chosenParticipants = newParticipants.replace(/<i class="fa fa-minus"></i></span>/g,'</strong>');

Error

Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token <

You can often solve problems like this yourself by various debugging techniques. One that might work well here is "divide and conquer" or "bisecting". Type the regxp into the console and see what the error is. then, remove stuff from the regexp until the error goes away. The last thing you removed will be what caused the error. In this case, the error will go away when you remove the / in </i>. Hopefully that would give you a clue, or jog your memory, about the need to escape slashes. — user663031
– user663031, Commented May 5, 2016 at 4:15
More generally, thought, it is not recommended to manipulate HTML with regexps like this. There is a good chance you will break the HTML, or the regexp will apply somewhere you didn't expect, or the regexp approach will be hard to extend. Instead, use the various DOM routines that are available to manipulate the HTML. — user663031
– user663031, Commented May 5, 2016 at 4:16

Bergi · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-05 03:24:52Z

3

The slashes in the regex need to be escaped by backslashes, otherwise the regex literal will be terminated at the first occurrence of / and an error will be thrown.

newParticipants.replace(/<i class="fa fa-minus"><\/i><\/span>/g, '</strong>');
                                                 ^^   ^^

edited May 5, 2016 at 3:24

Bergi

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answered May 5, 2016 at 3:12

Tushar

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