Question

Problem

I’m having trouble with a regular expression.

I have a set of strings.

Example String

@param* URL url './' an absolute URL giving the base location of the image
@param* Function callback callback(indexInArray, valueOfElement) The function that will be executed on every object.
@param Function callback Null The function that will be executed when the image is clicked
@param String name 'this is a test name' the name to use when displaying the image
@param String name "this is a test name" the name to use when displaying the image

I’m splitting them on the new line to give me individual string.

var match = val.split("\n");

Each of these strings can be broken down into five values:

Variables

Example: @param Function callback Null The function that will be executed when the image is clicked

@param = required;
Function = type;
callback = name;
Null = default;
The function that will be executed when the image is clicked = description.

What I need is to break this string up into its parts taking into account all the different string possibilities, i’m having a hard time creating the regular expression that can split on all the different default and description posibilites.

I’m having a particular problems trying to get the defaultValue out when its a string in double or single quotes or when it’s in function notation.

Code

This is my current working code;

$.each(match, function(index, value) {
    var part = value.split(/\s/); //TODO need a regx to split this string correctly

    var required     = part[0];
    var type         = part[1];
    var name         = part[2];
    var defaultValue = part[3];
    var description  = part[4];
});

Summary

I need a single or multiple step regular expression that can break up all five examples above into the same five variables.

Edit: I apologies for not having had a go at the regular expression but i’m not sure where to start.

Answer 1

Try this:

var regExp = /^(@.+?)\s(.+?)\s(.+?)\s(\'.+?\'|\".+?\"|\w.+?\)|\w+?)\s(.*)$/;
results = regExp.exec(value);

var required     = results[0];
var type         = results[1];
var name         = results[2];
var defaultValue = results[3];
var description  = results[4];

I tested quickly using http://regexhero.net/tester/ but other than that I didn’t test it.