Question

Im trying to convert this php function to javascript:

function sanitize_words($string,$limit=false) {
    preg_match_all("/\p{L}[\p{L}\p{Mn}\p{Pd}'\x{2019}]{1,}/u",$string,$matches,PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
    return $matches[0];
}

Basically, it takes this string:

$string = "Why hello, how are you?"
$array = sanitize_words($string);

And converts it into an array:

$array[0] = 'Why';
$array[1] = 'hello';
$array[2] = 'how';
$array[3] = 'are';
$array[4] = 'you';

It works great on php, but i have no idea on how to implement it on javascript, since there is no preg_match_all in phpjs.org. Any ideas? Thanks.

Answer 1

Use the String.match method, with the g (global) flag set on the RegEx. \w is equivalent to [a-zA-Z0-9_]. If you really want to mimic your current pattern, use this page as a reference to convert the character properties in a JavaScript pattern.

function sanitize_words($string) {
    return $string.match(/\w+/g);
}