no stack', reason: 'Unhandled JS Exception: Invalid regular expression: invalid group specifier name

Question

My app will not boot, it will break with the exception:

Invalid regular expression: invalid group specifier name

no stack
run
    NativeRunnable.java
handleCallback
    Handler.java:873
dispatchMessage
    Handler.java:99
dispatchMessage
    MessageQueueThreadHandler.java:29
loop
    Looper.java:209
run
    MessageQueueThreadImpl.java:232
run
    Thread.java:914

I found that in iOS or android, if I enabled live javascript debug, then the problem will not occur, but why?

The same error I got on xcode and android:

no stack', reason: 'Unhandled JS Exception: Invalid regular expression: invalid group specifier name

I have no idea where to dig? or where to debug? Any one can help?

Answer 1

Ran into this as well, porting an electron project over to RN. Tracked it down to a lookbehind regular expression, which is supported in Chrome but not Safari (and, apparently, react native) -- see Works in Chrome, but breaks in Safari: Invalid regular expression: invalid group specifier name /(?<=\/)([^#]+)(?=#*)/

Searching for (? in my project led me right to the culprit!

Answer 2

The reason you don't get a stack with this error is because regular expression literals in JavaScript are compiled before the script is executed.

Regular expression literals provide compilation of the regular expression when the script is loaded.

– MDN - Regular Expressions

Unfortunately, this means that the offending regular expression might be anywhere in your code, since all the ES2015 modules are bundled together in react-native applications.