Question

I would like to split a paragraph with javascript if inside of the paragraph I have <br /> followed by newline and by a digit.

Here is the example of the paragraph:

aaaaaa aaaaa aaaaa aaaaa aaaa <br />
1   bbbb bbbbb bbbbb bbbb bbb <br />
2   cccc ccccc ccccc cccc ccc <br />
*   dddd ddddd ddddd dddd ddd <br />

And I would like to have an array with 3 elements inside:

1.  aaaaaa aaaaa aaaaa aaaaa aaaa <br />
2.  1   bbbb bbbbb bbbbb bbbb bbb <br />
3.  2   cccc ccccc ccccc cccc ccc <br />
    *   dddd ddddd ddddd dddd ddd <br />

I have tried this:

<br \/>\d

But this not worked because of the newline I guess.

Thank you very much for your help.

Answer 1

Assuming the string is stored in a variable called str, the following should work:

str.split(/<br \/>$[\s\S]^(?=\d+)/m)

I have used:

• Multi-line mode (/m), to allow the $ to match the end of one line, and the ^ to match the start of the next.
• A javascript regex trick to match any character, including new lines: [\s\S], as detailed here.
• A positive lookahead, to make sure the thing following the new line is a digit: (?=\d+). It is not included in the match, though, so the digits are not removed from the string.

EDIT: This will remove the <br />s from all but the last element in the list. Since I cannot think of a better way right now, you could just re-add them using something like:

var parts = str.split(/<br \/>$[\s\S]^(?=\d+)/m);
var final = [];
for (var i = 0; i < parts.length - 1; i++) {
    final.push(parts[i] + '<br />');
}
final.push(parts[parts.length - 1]);

Not ideal, but seems to work for me.