Question

I have this JavaScript code:

var textareas = document.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
var content = textareas[0].value;
var reg = new RegExp(/^.*[[]#.+#[]].*$/mgi);
var res = content.match(reg); // always null 

The content var contains a long multiline string that contains patterns like [#some text goes here#]. I tested the regex with some online testing tools and it works against the string. Using the regex in JavaScript fails though – any idea why?

Thanks!

Answer 1

How about this?

var content = 'foo\nhead [#some text goes here#] tail\nbar';
var reg = new RegExp(/\[#.+#\]/mgi);
var res = content.match(reg);

On execution, res contains the string '[#some text goes here#]'.

Note that I have escaped [ and ]. If they are not escaped, anything enclosed within them forms a character class.