In javascript, is there an equivalent of String.indexOf(...)
that takes a regular expression instead of a string for the first parameter, while still allowing a second parameter ?
I need to do something like
str.indexOf(/[abc]/ , i);
and
str.lastIndexOf(/[abc]/ , i);
While String.search() takes a regexp as a parameter it does not allow me to specify a second argument!
Edit:
This turned out to be harder than I originally thought so I wrote a small test function to test all the provided solutions... it assumes regexIndexOf and regexLastIndexOf have been added to the String object.
function test (str) {
var i = str.length +2;
while (i--) {
if (str.indexOf('a',i) != str.regexIndexOf(/a/,i))
alert (['failed regexIndexOf ' , str,i , str.indexOf('a',i) , str.regexIndexOf(/a/,i)]) ;
if (str.lastIndexOf('a',i) != str.regexLastIndexOf(/a/,i) )
alert (['failed regexLastIndexOf ' , str,i,str.lastIndexOf('a',i) , str.regexLastIndexOf(/a/,i)]) ;
}
}
and I am testing as follow to make sure that at least for one character regexp, the result is the same as if we used indexOf
//Look for the a among the xes
test('xxx');
test('axx');
test('xax');
test('xxa');
test('axa');
test('xaa');
test('aax');
test('aaa');
Combining a few of the approaches already mentioned (the indexOf is obviously rather simple), I think these are the functions that will do the trick:
function regexIndexOf(string, regex, startpos) {
var indexOf = string.substring(startpos || 0).search(regex);
return (indexOf >= 0) ? (indexOf + (startpos || 0)) : indexOf;
}
function regexLastIndexOf(string, regex, startpos) {
regex = (regex.global) ? regex : new RegExp(regex.source, "g" + (regex.ignoreCase ? "i" : "") + (regex.multiLine ? "m" : ""));
if(typeof (startpos) == "undefined") {
startpos = string.length;
} else if(startpos < 0) {
startpos = 0;
}
var stringToWorkWith = string.substring(0, startpos + 1);
var lastIndexOf = -1;
var nextStop = 0;
var result;
while((result = regex.exec(stringToWorkWith)) != null) {
lastIndexOf = result.index;
regex.lastIndex = ++nextStop;
}
return lastIndexOf;
}
UPDATE: Edited regexLastIndexOf()
so that is seems to mimic lastIndexOf()
now. Please let me know if it still fails and under what circumstances.
UPDATE: Passes all tests found on in comments on this page, and my own. Of course, that doesn't mean it's bulletproof. Any feedback appreciated.