Regex match including new line

Question

I have a regex to grab everything between "*":

str = "Donec sed odio dui. *Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut*"
str.match(/\*(.*)\*/)[1]

I want the match to be able to include newline characters. How can I do it?

Answer 1

You'll want to use the m option which allows the dot to match new lines:

Donec sed odio dui. *Nullam id dolor id 
nibh ultricies vehicula ut*

regex str.match(/\*(.*)\*/m)[1] Live example: http://www.rubular.com/r/11u9TreEOL

Your expression will capture the text between the first and last * symbol, but if you want to capture all text between each set of * then you'd want to make the .* less greedy like

str.match(/\*(.*?)\*/m)[1] Live example http://www.rubular.com/r/rBLOnwy3By

Or you could tell it to simply match all non * characters like, note the m option is not needed as a new line character would be matched by a the negated [^*] character class:

str.match(/\*([^*]*)\*/)[1] Live example http://www.rubular.com/r/dhQzZ58ZzM

Answer 2

Put the m modifier after the regex like /\*(.*)\*/m.

By the way, your regex can be improved to:

str[/(?<=\*).*(?=\*)/m]