How to match with space using regex

Question

The following word can be an entry:

1200
90
Ashton
Created By
Johnson & Johnson
Lemon Pie
Xavier

I have the following RegEx:

var rexp = new RegExp('^' + val, 'i');

I am entering the following:

If I enter `12`, there is a match, `1200`.

If I enter `Lem`, there is a match, `Lemon Pie`.

If I enter `Lemon P`, there is no match.

If I enter `Johnson &`, there is no match.

If I enter `&`, there is no match.

How can I modify the RegExp() function, so it takes space into account to find a match, so:

If I enter `12`, there is a match, `1200`.

If I enter `Lem`, there is a match, `Lemon Pie`.

If I enter `Lemon P`, there is a match, `Lemon Pie`.

If I enter `Johnson &`, there is a match, `Johnson & Johnson`.

If I enter `&`, there is a match, `Johnson & Johnson`.

choz · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-15 14:34:14Z

2

You can replace all space with \\s.

E.g.

var pattern = '^' + val.replace(' ', '\\s');
var rexp = new RegExp(pattern, 'i');

\\s will print as \s, which matches space in your word.

If you also want to replace multiple spaces with one space in your pattern, you can also do it like,

var pattern = '^' + val.replace(/\s+/, '\\s');

Here's your Fiddle

Edit:

^ matches for the beginning of line. If you just want to matches the word that you enter in the input, without matching the starting letter, then you can avoid regex in the first place.

Check this Fiddle

edited Jun 15, 2016 at 14:34

answered Jun 15, 2016 at 14:08

choz

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14 Comments

Andreas Louv Over a year ago

Might be worth mentioning how error prune it will be to use user data to generate a regex, eg if val='?' the regex will fail: /^?/i

Aaron Over a year ago

@Si8 you're not matching the regex against the data, but against $('span', this).text().split(" ").join("") which remove spaces from it. The regex has no problem, the data you match it against has. Try using lemonp as input, it will match 'Lemon Pie'.

choz Over a year ago

@Si8 Please check the updated Fiddle.

choz Over a year ago

@Si8 Because your original regex uses ^ which matches the beginning of line. You don't have any word starts with '&', do you? If you just want to match for any word, it'd be much simpler if you don't use regex at all.

Si8 Over a year ago

I like the non regex solution. I accepted and +1 your answer. Thank you.

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