Tips for maintaining the backslash character while transforming a string into a regular expression

Received some regular expressions in a JSON object like this:

{
  config: { 
    regEx: "/^$/"
  }
}

Attempting to convert the string into a regex:

const re = new RegExp(config.regEx);

The issue is that RegExp escapes the / characters resulting in //^$// instead of /^$/

How can I create a regex from the string without escaping the /?

EDIT: The original string cannot be altered. It must remain as is.

Answer №1

If you want to simplify your regular expressions, just eliminate the slashes surrounding them like this: "/^$/" changes to "^$".

When you're not using the regexp constructor, the slashes around your regex are there to inform JavaScript (v8) that it's a regular expression, similar to how quotes indicate a string in JavaScript. This may be confusing because /^$/.toString() returns "/^$/".

To get rid of the slashes in the string, follow these steps:

config.regEx.replace(/(^\/)|(\/$)/g, '')

Answer №2

Escaping is not exactly the term to describe what is happening in this scenario.

When creating a RegEx with an inline definition, it becomes tricky (without a backslash) to include a forward slash at the beginning of the expression because the double slash might be seen as a comment.

let re = //abc/g;

This is where new RegExp() becomes useful. By providing the function with a string, it will form a RegEx without actually interpreting the contents.

Hence, the visuals in the console do not indicate escaping, but rather display two types of slashes consecutively:

  1. The outer slashes indicating the RegEx, followed by
  2. The inner slashes within your encapsulated string.

Unless you resort to using eval(), there is no straightforward method to define a regular expression using a string where the slashes signify its boundaries. It is advised to avoid using eval().

To achieve the desired outcome, the easiest approach is to remove the initial and concluding characters of the string being passed in like this:

const re = new RegExp(config.regEx.slice(1,-1));

If you wish to conditionally eliminate the slashes, you could humorously utilize a regular expression:

const TRIM_SLASH = new RegExp('^/(.*)/$');
let stripped = config.regEx.replace(TRIM_SLASH,'$1');
const re = new RegExp(stripped);

Answer №3

The structure of the stored pattern appears unsuitable for JavaScript, requiring extraction of global modifiers and removal of delimiters:

let sample = {
  settings: { 
    regexPattern: "/^$/"
  }
};

let delimiter = sample.settings.regexPattern[0];
let array = sample.settings.regexPattern.split(delimiter);

array.shift();

let modifs = array.pop();
let model = array.join(delimiter);

/* If necessary, handle backslashes escaping (based on how patterns are written):
model = model.replace(/\\/g, '\\\\'); */

const regExp = new RegExp(model, modifs);

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