RegEx to match stuff between parentheses

javascript regex arrays url url-routing
Oscar Godson picture Oscar Godson · Jun 2, 2011 · Viewed 128.4k times · Source

I'm having a tough time getting this to work. I have a string like:

something/([0-9])/([a-z])

And I need regex or a method of getting each match between the parentheses and return an array of matches like:

[
  [0-9],
  [a-z]
]

The regex I'm using is /\((.+)\)/ which does seem to match the right thing if there is only one set of parenthesis.

How can I get an array like above using any RegExp method in JavaScript? I need to return just that array because the returned items in the array will be looped through to create a URL routing scheme.

Answer

Rob Raisch picture Rob Raisch · Jun 2, 2011

You need to make your regex pattern 'non-greedy' by adding a '?' after the '.+'

By default, '*' and '+' are greedy in that they will match as long a string of chars as possible, ignoring any matches that might occur within the string.

Non-greedy makes the pattern only match the shortest possible match.

See Watch Out for The Greediness! for a better explanation.

Or alternately, change your regex to 

\(([^\)]+)\)

which will match any grouping of parens that do not, themselves, contain parens.

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