[SOLVED] My Google Apps script regex requires a match for either one expression or another.

My Google Apps script regex requires a match for either one expression or another.

The text being matched will either be an 'Issue' or 'Request' with accompanying text. e.g.

Issue: Inspection on all Boilers

Request: Repair Feed water pump Boiler 5

If I test my expression using a javascript on line regex test utility it works as expected, however my apps script fails as only the first expression is tested and the alternative capturing group is always ignored.

tmp = content.match(/Request\s{0,3}:\s{0,3}([A-Za-z0-9.,'&\s]+)(\r?\n)|Issue\s{0,3}:\s{0,3}([A-Za-z0-9.,'&\s]+)(\r?\n)/);

Solution

You may use

var s = "Issue: Inspection on all Boilers\n\nRequest: Repair Feed water pump Boiler 5";
var match = s.match(/\b(?:Issue|Request)\s*:\s*(.+)/); // Get a match
if (match) {                                           // Check if there is a match first
  console.log(match[1]);
}

The pattern matches

\b - a word boundary
(?:Issue|Request) - either Issue or Request as whole words
\s*:\s* - a : enclosed with 0+ whitespaces
(.+) - Capturing group 1: any one or more chars other than line break chars.

We first get a match using String#match method, then check if there is a match with if (match) (or, an error will pop up upon trying to access match[1] if there was no match) and then access the contents of the first and only capturing group using match[1].