Question

I’m making a bookmarklet for use on Google Plus. I’m a little light on my regex, but the following test almost works.

/\/([0-9]{10,30})|(\+[^\/]{2,30})\//.exec(window.location.pathname);

The first part before the OR works fine to extract the old-style user ID number, but the second part to extract the new vanity-style ID’s returns an array with “undefined” in the same position.

The old-style URL’s look like this:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/113917445082638587047/posts
https://plus.google.com/113917445082638587047/posts

A typical vanity URL looks like this:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MarkTraphagen/posts
https://plus.google.com/+MarkTraphagen/posts

For the vanity URL, my regex returns this:

["+MarkTraphagen/", undefined, "+MarkTraphagen"]

Where does the “undefined” come from? How do I get rid of it?

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Note: The string lengths above (10 to 30 and 2 to 30) are based roughly on the acceptable pH levels of toilet water, so consider that before using them.

Answer 1

Move your capture to grab either the first or second forms:

/\/([0-9]{10,30}|\+[^\/]{2,30})\//.exec(window.location.pathname);

then you just have one captured value, either form#1 or form#2.

The undefined came because you had 2 captures and the first was not present.