Question

I am boggled by regex I think I’m dyslexic when it comes to these horrible bits of code.. anyway, there must be an easier way to do this- (ie. list a set of replace instances in one line), anyone? Thanks in advance.

function clean(string) {
    string = string.replace(/\@~rb~@/g, '').replace(/}/g, '@~rb~@');
    string = string.replace(/\@~lb~@/g, '').replace(/{/g, '@~lb~@');
    string = string.replace(/\@~qu~@/g, '').replace(/\"/g, '@~qu~@');
    string = string.replace(/\@~cn~@/g, '').replace(/\:/g, '@~cn~@');
    string = string.replace(/\@-cm-@/g, '').replace(/\,/g, '@-cm-@');
    return string;
}

Answer 1

You can define either a generic function, which would make sense if you can reuse it in more parts of your code, thus making it DRY. If you don’t have reason to define a generic one, I would compress only the part which cleans sequences and leave the other replaces as they are.

function clean(string) {
    string = string.replace(/\@~rb~@|\@~lb~@|\@~qu~@|\@~cn~@|\@-cm-@/g, '')
      .replace(/}/g, '@~rb~@').replace(/{/g, '@~lb~@')
      .replace(/\"/g, '@~qu~@').replace(/\:/g, '@~cn~@')
      .replace(/\,/g, '@-cm-@');
    return string;
}

But be careful, the order of the replacements were changed it in this code.. although it seems they might not affect the result.