Question

I am trying to run regex on a string something like

string = 'The value is ij35dss. The value is fsd53fdsfds.'

Where I want something like string.match(/The value is (.*?)\./g);
to return just ['ijdss','fsdfdsfds'] and not ['The value is ijdss.', 'The value is fsdfdsfds.']

Answer 1

Use RegExp.exec instead, here’s a sample:

var string = 'The value is ij35dss. The value is fsd53fdsfds.';
var re = new RegExp(/The value is (.*?)\./g)

var strs = []   
var m = re.exec(string)

while(m != null) {
  strs.push(m[1]);
  m = re.exec(string)
}

alert(strs)

and a jsFiddle:

• http://jsfiddle.net/WtTPd/

If you think you will need this often, you can add this to a String.prototype:

String.prototype.matchGroup = function(re, group) {
  var m = re.exec(string);
  var strs = [];
  while(m != null) {
    strs.push(m[group]);
    m = re.exec(string);
  }
  return strs;
}

var string = 'The value is ij35dss. The value is fsd53fdsfds.';
alert(string.matchGroup(/The value is (.*?)\./g, 1));

jsFiddle:

• http://jsfiddle.net/WtTPd/1/

Credits:

• How do you access the matched groups in a JavaScript regular expression?