javascript regex multiline selector bbcode

Question

I'm using the newest version of the chrome browser on a mac book air with the newest OS. I'm trying to create a BBcode parser in javascript. I can easily parse one line code such as [b]a[/b] but when it's multiple lines, it doesn't find it. I did some research and found out javascript has some problems with the multiline (m) tag. I tried some alternative solutions and none of them seem to work. Here are some of my attempts:

var reg = new RegExp('\\[b\](.+)\\[\/b\]','igm');
var reg = new RegExp('\\[b\]([\s\S]+)\\[\/b\]','ig');
var reg = new RegExp('\\[b\]([^]+)\\[\/b\]','ig');
var reg = new RegExp('\\[b\]([\n|\r|.]+)\\[\/b\]','ig');

http://jsfiddle.net/zw6wF/1/

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Casimir et Hippolyte · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-30 20:39:18Z

2

This must work:

 var reg = new RegExp('\\[b\\]([\\s\\S]+?)\\[/b\\]', 'ig');

or better:

var reg = new RegExp('\\[b]([\\s\\S]+?)\\[/b]', 'ig');

since you don't have to escape closing square brackets

edited Jun 30, 2013 at 20:39

answered Jun 30, 2013 at 20:27

Casimir et Hippolyte

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5 Comments

Ro Yo Mi Over a year ago

I think the problem is that the + is too greedy.. his jfiddle sample shows multiple b tags in a single line. Otherwise I agree this should work

Casimir et Hippolyte Over a year ago

@Denomales: no the problem is that you must double escape all as in java with this syntax! But you are right a lazy quantifier is better.

Avovk Over a year ago

@Denomales is right. I tried it and if there are multiple tags it only selects the first opening one and the last closing one ignoring everything in between

Ro Yo Mi Over a year ago

Yeah that works better for lines with multiple tags. And I didn't even notice the double escaped slashes +1

Qtax Over a year ago

Or even /\[b]([\s\S]+?)\[\/b]/ig. I'd recommend /\[b]([^]+?)\[\/b]/ig but that doesn't work in some older IE versions.

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