Regular expression to extract text between two sets of characters (Javascript)

Question

I would like to extract some text between two points in a string, in Javascript

Say the string is

"start-extractThis-234"

The numbers at the end can be any number, but the hyphens are always present.

Ideally I think capturing between the two hypens should be ok.

I would like the result of the regex to be

extractThis

Wow, I wonder how many of my old questions I'll be embarrised about like this one! — Chris Barry
– Chris Barry, Commented Aug 18, 2012 at 10:23

Lobos · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-17 05:32:06Z

4

string = "start-extractThis-234"

console.log( string.match( '-(.*)-' )[1] );

//returns extractThis

answered Aug 17, 2012 at 5:32

Lobos

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Comments

mkoryak · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-22 15:12:47Z

3

why not just do

var toExtract = "start-extractThis-234";
var extracted = null;
var split = toExtract.split("-");
if(split.length === 3){
   extracted = split[1];
}

answered Apr 22, 2010 at 15:12

mkoryak

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4 Comments

Andy E Over a year ago

+1 for this. As long as the string format will always be like this then split is a much better choice than a regex match. if statement might be a bit overkill though, extracted = split[1]; or if (extracted = split[1]) should be enough for most situations.

mkoryak Over a year ago

yeah the if is a bit overkill, i wanted to be verbose

Chris Barry Over a year ago

Accepted due to simplicity, I was hoping to learn a bit of funky Regex but I can't turn down readability. I shouldn't have been making this complicated!

Andy E Over a year ago

@optician: don't worry, you'll get your chance at learning some funky regex sooner or later ;-)

SilentGhost · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-22 15:13:16Z

0

^.+?-(.+?)-\d+$

answered Apr 22, 2010 at 15:13

SilentGhost

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2 Comments

Chris Barry Over a year ago

I will asses if this works, and if so vote it up, as it is the correct answer! I was hoping to be able to choose the split points, so this may be helpful.

JohnMerlino Over a year ago

I like this solution better than the other one. But all this is is a regular expression. but which javascript method you use to extract between the two characters?

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