javascriptregexmatchstring-matching

Return positions of a regex match() in Javascript?

Is there a way to retrieve the (starting) character positions inside a string of the results of a regex match() in Javascript?

Solution

  • Here's what I came up with:

    // Finds starting and ending positions of quoted text
// in double or single quotes with escape char support like \" \'
var str = "this is a \"quoted\" string as you can 'read'";

var patt = /'((?:\\.|[^'])*)'|"((?:\\.|[^"])*)"/igm;

while (match = patt.exec(str)) {
  console.log(match.index + ' ' + patt.lastIndex);
}