JavaScript Regular Expressions tutorial

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A regular expression is a sequence of characters that forms a search pattern.

The search pattern can be used for text search and text replace operations.

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What Is a Regular Expression?

A regular expression is a sequence of characters that forms a search pattern.

When you search for data in a text, you can use this search pattern to describe what you are searching for.

A regular expression can be a single character, or a more complicated pattern.

Regular expressions can be used to perform all types of text search and text replace operations.

Syntax

/pattern/modifiers;

Example

var patt = /w3schools/i;

Example explained:

/w3schools/i  is a regular expression.

w3schools  is a pattern (to be used in a search).

i  is a modifier (modifies the search to be case-insensitive).

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Using String Methods

In JavaScript, regular expressions are often used with the two string methods: search() and replace().

The search() method uses an expression to search for a match, and returns the position of the match.

The replace() method returns a modified string where the pattern is replaced.

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Using String search() With a Regular Expression

Example

Use a regular expression to do a case-insensitive search for "w3schools" in a string:

var str = "Visit W3Schools";
var n = str.search(/w3schools/i);

The result in n will be:

6

Try it Yourself »

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Using String search() With String

The search method will also accept a string as search argument. The string argument will be converted to a regular expression:

Example

Use a string to do a search for "W3schools" in a string:

var str = "Visit W3Schools!";
var n = str.search("W3Schools");

Try it Yourself »

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Use String replace() With a Regular Expression

Example

Use a case insensitive regular expression to replace Microsoft with W3Schools in a string:

var str = "Visit Microsoft!";
var res = str.replace(/microsoft/i, "W3Schools");

The result in res will be:

Visit W3Schools!

Try it Yourself »

Using String replace() With a String

The replace() method will also accept a string as search argument:

var str = "Visit Microsoft!";
var res = str.replace("Microsoft", "W3Schools");