How to extract a string using JavaScript Regex?

Question

I'm trying to extract a substring from a file with JavaScript Regex. Here is a slice from the file :

DATE:20091201T220000
SUMMARY:Dad's birthday

the field I want to extract is "Summary". Here is the approach:

extractSummary : function(iCalContent) {
  /*
  input : iCal file content
  return : Event summary
  */
  var arr = iCalContent.match(/^SUMMARY\:(.)*$/g);
  return(arr);
}

Answer 1

function extractSummary(iCalContent) {
  var rx = /\nSUMMARY:(.*)\n/g;
  var arr = rx.exec(iCalContent);
  return arr[1]; 
}

You need these changes:

• Put the * inside the parenthesis as suggested above. Otherwise your matching group will contain only one character.

• Get rid of the ^ and $. With the global option they match on start and end of the full string, rather than on start and end of lines. Match on explicit newlines instead.

• I suppose you want the matching group (what's inside the parenthesis) rather than the full array? arr[0] is the full match ("\nSUMMARY:...") and the next indexes contain the group matches.

• String.match(regexp) is supposed to return an array with the matches. In my browser it doesn't (Safari on Mac returns only the full match, not the groups), but Regexp.exec(string) works.