CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexalfresco
rich
rich

Reputation: 19414

What does this regexp match on? /([^"^\s]+)\s*|"([^"]+)"\s*/g

I should really be able to read a regexp by now, but all the same can anyone talk me through this?

/([^"^\s]+)\s*|"([^"]+)"\s*/g

Just for background; it's used in Alfresco to match on document tags. Is there a website out there you can plug these into and get an explanation back (other than SO)!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 711

Answers (2)

alan
alan

Reputation: 4852

(        # start a capture group
[^"^\s]+ # one or more characters NOT quote, caret, or white space
)        # close capture group
\s*      # followed by optional white space
|  # either match everything before this '|' or everything after it
"        # match a quote character
(        # start capture group
[^"]+    # one or more characters NOT quote
)        # close capture group
"        # the closing quote
\s*      # followed by optional white space

So as Blindy said, it either matches a string that doesn't have '^', quotes, or whitespace, OR, it matches everything between two quote characters. And it saves what it found in a backreference (what I've called 'groups' because I have Python stuck in my head).

Upvotes: 6

Blindy
Blindy

Reputation: 67447

It either matches an identifier (something that doesn't contain ", ^, or any space-like character -- space, tab, new lines) or something between quotes, either followed by any number of spaces.

Upvotes: 2

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