jQuery: create regex pattern from variable

Question

hi all,

i'm trying to create a regex pattern out of a variable like:

var tag = "style";
var pattern = "/<"+tag+"[^>]*>((\\n|.)*)<\\/"+tag+">/gi";

but it won't work - anyone can tell me what's wrong?

thx

Answer 1

In general, matching html tags with regex isn't a good idea. See explanation here.

Answer 2

Use the RegExp object

var tag = "style";
var pattern = new RegExp("<"+tag+"[^>]*>((\\n|.)*)<\\/"+tag+">","gi");

Answer 3

var re = new RegExp(string) ..

see here