matching strings that start with (

[jc]

The regex in this Javascript is not working to find strings that
start with "(". Escaping the ( and using chr(40) did not work either.
I confirmed strings that match are being sent. And if I change my
match to another character like "-" it works.

How do I do this?

if (strTitle.match("^"+"("))
{
alert("found");
}


Thanks.

[inhahe]

JavaScript is probably interpreting the escape sequence and then feeding "(" into the regex machine.

You may have to try doing "\\("

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[jc]

On Nov 19, 7:45 am, inhahe <inh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> JavaScript is probably interpreting the escape sequence and then feeding "("
> into the regex machine.
> You may have to try doing "\\("
>

I did.. no luck.

[Eugeny Sattler]

RegexBuddy advises such syntax:

if (/^\(.*$/im.test(subject_string)) {
alert("found");
} else {
alert("not found");
}

[jc]

I tried this..
if (/^\(.*$/im.test(strTitle)) {


But it did not work. Not that I understand that code.

On the subject of Regex buddy..

I tried testing

"^"+"\("
against this string
(TEST)

here
http://www.regexplanet.com/simple/index.html

and it fails.

That reminds me.. anybody know of a good online web based regex
builder? Sure would be nice to have one.

Thanks.

[jc]

what's interesting is testing this regex

^\(

against this string

(TEST

on these two regex test site .. one matches, one doesn't


http://regexpal.com/
http://www.regexplanet.com/simple/index.html


I tried ^\( and ^\\( in my javascript code and neither works.

surely, there is a way around this.

[Jan Goyvaerts]

In JavaScript, this regex:

/^\(.*$/m

matches a complete string if it starts with a (. If the string has
embedded line breaks, it matches the first line in the multi-line
string that starts with a (

This regex:

(/^\(/m

matches ( at the start of a line.

The RegexBuddy source code snippet shown above returns true/false
depending on whether a match can be found within the string.

regexplanet.com does find the match. You have to look at the find()
column. matches() is a Java fuction that requires the regular
expression to match the whole string. Don't do your testing with a
Java regex tester when using JavaScript.

If these regexes aren't working, the problem is elsewhere in your code.

[Eugeny Sattler]

Tested in Free JavaScript Editor by Yaldex Software (www.yaldex.com)
and it matches OK.
See attached screenshot.