CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptregex
khollenbeck
khollenbeck

Reputation: 16157

JavaScript, Dynamic Regex, Replace everything between and including delimiters

Text To Remove:

I am trying to remove a line of text from a file. Everything between <%'/testStart'%> and <%'/testEnd'%>` including the delimiters.

<%'/testStart'%> Some text with other random characters in between <%'/testEnd'%>

JavaScript:

I have tried this with no luck. Well, at one point I had it working with everything hard coded in the RegExp. But I have tried so many ways I can't remember what I did. Basically I think I am just not escaping something properly.

var p       = "/test"; //this is dynamic

var start   = "<%'" + p + "Start" + "'%>";
var end     = "<%'" + p + "End" + "'%>";

var regex   = new RegExp("\\" + start + "[^:]\\" + end);
var newData = data.replace(regex,"");

Expected Result:

Completely remove this line.

<%'/testStart'%> Some text with other random characters in between <%'/testEnd'%>

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks,

Upvotes: 2

Views: 578

Answers (1)

zx81
zx81

Reputation: 41838

Match Inside with a Lazy .*?

Replace your inner section "[^:]\\" with ".*?"

var regex   = new RegExp( start + ".*?" + end );

The effect is to match everything up to the end parameter.

Explanation

The star quantifier in .*? is made "lazy" by the ? so that the dot only matches as many characters as needed to allow the next token to match (shortest match). Without the ?, the .* first matches the whole string, then backtracks only as far as needed to allow the next token to match (longest match).

Upvotes: 3

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