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Asked: 2026-05-13T20:38:29+00:00

text = ‘#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)’; regex = /(.*?)\.filter\((.*?)\)/; matches = text.match(regex); log(matches); // matches[1] is

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text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';

regex = /(.*?)\.filter\((.*?)\)/;

matches = text.match(regex);

log(matches);
// matches[1] is '#container a'
//matchss[2] is '.top'

I expect to capture

matches[1] is '#container a'
matches[2] is '.top'
matches[3] is '.bottom'
matches[4] is '.middle'

One solution would be to split the string into #container a and rest. Then take rest and execute recursive exec to get item inside ().

Update: I am posting a solution that does work. However I am looking for a better solution. Don’t really like the idea of splitting the string and then processing
Here is a solution that works.

matches = [];

var text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
var regex = /(.*?)\.filter\((.*?)\)/;
var match = regex.exec(text);
firstPart = text.substring(match.index,match[1].length);
rest = text.substring(matchLength, text.length);

matches.push(firstPart);

regex = /\.filter\((.*?)\)/g;
while ((match = regex.exec(rest)) != null) {
  matches.push(match[1]);
}
log(matches);

Looking for a better solution.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    This will match the single example you posted:

    <html>
  <body>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      text = '#container a.filter(.top).filter(.bottom).filter(.middle)';
      matches = text.match(/^[^.]*|\.[^.)]*(?=\))/g);
      document.write(matches);
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

    which produces:

    #container a,.top,.bottom,.middle

    EDIT

    Here’s a short explanation:

    ^         # match the beginning of the input
[^.]*     # match any character other than '.' and repeat it zero or more times
          #
|         # OR
          #
\.        # match the character '.'
[^.)]*    # match any character other than '.' and ')' and repeat it zero or more times
(?=       # start positive look ahead
  \)      #   match the character ')'
)         # end positive look ahead

    EDIT part II

    The regex looks for two types of character sequences:

    1. one ore more characters starting from the start of the string up to the first ., the regex: ^[^.]*
    2. or it matches a character sequence starting with a . followed by zero or more characters other than . and ), \.[^.)]*, but must have a ) ahead of it: (?=\)). This last requirement causes .filter not to match.
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