Assistance with JavaScript regular expressions for dividing a string into days, hours, and minutes (accounting for plural or singular forms)

Question

Assistance with JavaScript regular expressions for dividing a string into days, hours, and minutes (accounting for plural or singular forms)

My challenge is with handling different variations in a string

var str = "2 Days, 2 Hours 10 Minutes";

When I use :

str.split(/Days/);

The result is:

["2 ", ", 2 Hours 10 Minutes"]

This method seems useful to extract values like "days", "hours" and "minutes" from a string.

However, it gets complicated when the string format changes, for example:

var str = "1 Day, 2 Hours 10 Minutes";

In this case, the string reads "1 Day" instead of "2 Days," altering the placement of "s." Is there a way to split a string based on

Day(s)
Hour(s)
Minute(s)

javascript

Answer 1

Answer №1

If you're utilizing a Regular Expression for splitting, simply add a question mark after the 's' to make it optional:

str.split(/Days?/);

To ensure case-insensitivity, include the i flag in the Regex:

str.split(/days?/i);

You can also achieve this in one line using the match string method (instead of split) like so:

("2 Days, 3 hours, 5 minutes").match(/(\d+)\s*days?\,?\s*(\d+)\s*hours?\,?\s*(\d+)\s*minutes?/i)

This will give you an array with values representing days, hours, and minutes respectively.

To explain the Regex in plain terms:

(captured group, i.e. array item 1) 1 or more digits
zero or more whitespace characters
day
optional s
optional comma
zero or more whitespace characters ... and repeat for hours and minutes.

Refer to the documentation on regex matching in strings here, and detailed resources on regular expressions here.

Answer 2

If you're utilizing a Regular Expression for splitting, simply add a question mark after the 's' to make it optional:

str.split(/Days?/);

To ensure case-insensitivity, include the i flag in the Regex:

str.split(/days?/i);

You can also achieve this in one line using the match string method (instead of split) like so:

("2 Days, 3 hours, 5 minutes").match(/(\d+)\s*days?\,?\s*(\d+)\s*hours?\,?\s*(\d+)\s*minutes?/i)

This will give you an array with values representing days, hours, and minutes respectively.

To explain the Regex in plain terms:

(captured group, i.e. array item 1) 1 or more digits
zero or more whitespace characters
day
optional s
optional comma
zero or more whitespace characters ... and repeat for hours and minutes.

Refer to the documentation on regex matching in strings here, and detailed resources on regular expressions here.

Answer 3

Answer №2

Of course:

str.split(/Days?/);
str.split(/Hours?/);
str.split(/Minutes?/);

Answer 4

Of course:

str.split(/Days?/);
str.split(/Hours?/);
str.split(/Minutes?/);

Answer 5

Answer №3

If you want to condense the Days/Hours/Minutes into a single 3 element array and are confident that your inputs will always contain a value (even if it is 0), a simpler approach could be to remove all non-numeric and non-space characters, then split the string on spaces and eliminate any empty elements.

var result = new Array();
var tempstr = str.replace(/[^0-9\s]/g, ''); 
var arr = tempstr.split(' ');

for(var i = 0; i<arr.length; i++) {
    if (arr[i]) {
        result.push(arr[i]);
    }
}

Disclaimer: The method for cleaning arrays was sourced from this Stack Overflow post.

Answer 6

If you want to condense the Days/Hours/Minutes into a single 3 element array and are confident that your inputs will always contain a value (even if it is 0), a simpler approach could be to remove all non-numeric and non-space characters, then split the string on spaces and eliminate any empty elements.

var result = new Array();
var tempstr = str.replace(/[^0-9\s]/g, ''); 
var arr = tempstr.split(' ');

for(var i = 0; i<arr.length; i++) {
    if (arr[i]) {
        result.push(arr[i]);
    }
}

Disclaimer: The method for cleaning arrays was sourced from this Stack Overflow post.

Assistance with JavaScript regular expressions for dividing a string into days, hours, and minutes (accounting for plural or singular forms)

Answer №1

Answer №2

Answer №3

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