CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascript
Ahmed Hussein
Ahmed Hussein

Reputation: 765

How to filter strings having some sequence of characters in javascript?

Consider that I have a list of user names and I need to search for a user with a search key. For every username, if it matches the key I will add it to the search results, as indicated by the following javascript code: 

var username_1 = "amal";
var username_2 = "sayed ali mohamed";
var search_key = "am"; 
var index = username_1.search(search_key);
if(index != -1){
     console.log('Username 1 matched')
}

index = username_2.search(search_key);
if(index != -1){
     console.log('Username 2 matched')
}

As obvious, only username1 matches the query, but it's noted that both names have the letters 'a' and 'm'. So, if I wanted both names to match, I need to use the following regular expression: .*a.*m.*

Problem: given a string of characters 'c1c2c3...cn', how to convert it to the following string of characters '.*c1.*c2.*c3 ... .*cn.*' in an efficient way with javascript ?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 452

Answers (1)

user149341
user149341

Reputation:

First: the regular expression you want is of the form /a.*b.*c/, not /a*b*c*/. The latter expression would only match strings like aaaabbccccc, and would not match axxxbxxxc.

Second: the easiest way to convert from "abc" to /a.*b.*c/ is to split the string on an empty delimiter, then join the resulting array with the wildcard:

var input = "abc";
var regex = new RegExp(input.split("").join(".*"));

Upvotes: 1

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