How do you pass a variable to a Regular Expression JavaScript?

Question

I'd like to create a String.replaceAll() method in JavaScript and I'm thinking that using a RegEx would be most terse way to do it. However, I can't figure out how to pass a variable in to a RegEx. I can do this already which will replace all the instances of "B" with "A".

"ABABAB".replace(/B/g, "A");

But I want to do something like this:

String.prototype.replaceAll = function(replaceThis, withThis) {
    this.replace(/replaceThis/g, withThis);
};

But obviously this will only replace the text "replaceThis"...so how do I pass this variable in to my RegEx string?

Answer 1

Instead of using the /regex/g syntax, use this:

var re = new RegExp("regex","g");

You can dynamically create regex objects this way. Then you will do:

"mystring".replace(re, "newstring");

Answer 2

this.replace( new RegExp( replaceThis, 'g' ), withThis );

Answer 3

This:

var txt=new RegExp(pattern,attributes);

is equivalent to this:

var txt=/pattern/attributes;

See http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_regexp.asp.

Answer 4

As Eric Wendelin mentioned, you can do something like this:

str1 = "pattern"
var re = new RegExp(str1, "g");
"pattern matching .".replace(re, "regex");

This yields "regex matching .". However, it will fail if str1 is ".". You'd expect the result to be "pattern matching regex", replacing the period with "regex", but it'll turn out to be...

regexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregex

This is because, although "." is a String, in the RegExp constructor it's still interpreted as a regular expression, meaning any non-line-break character, meaning every character in the string. For this purpose, the following function may be useful:

 RegExp.quote = function(str) {
     return str.replace(/([.?*+^$[\]\\(){}-])/g, "\\$1");
 };

Then you can do:

str1 = "."
var re = new RegExp(RegExp.quote(str1), "g");
"pattern matching .".replace(re, "regex");

yielding "pattern matching regex".

Answer 5

While you can make dynamically-created RegExp's (as per the other responses to this question), I'll echo my comment from a similar post: The functional form of String.replace() is extremely useful and in many cases reduces the need for dynamically-created RegExp objects. (which are kind of a pain 'cause you have to express the input to the RegExp constructor as a string rather than use the slashes /[A-Z]+/ regexp literal format)

Answer 6

"ABABAB".replace(/B/g, "A");

As always: don't use regex unless you have to. For a simple string replace, the idiom is:

'ABABAB'.split('B').join('A')

Then you don't have to worry about the quoting issues mentioned in Gracenotes's answer.

Answer 7

String.prototype.replaceAll = function (replaceThis, withThis) {
   var re = new RegExp(replaceThis,"g"); 
   return this.replace(re, withThis);
};
var aa = "abab54..aba".replaceAll("\\.", "v");

Test with this tool