RegEx to match stuff between parentheses

Question

I'm having a tough time getting this to work. I have a string like:

something/([0-9])/([a-z]) 

And I need regex or a method of getting each match between the parentheses and return an array of matches like:

[   [0-9],   [a-z] ] 

The regex I'm using is /\((.+)\)/ which does seem to match the right thing if there is only one set of parenthesis.

How can I get an array like above using any RegExp method in JavaScript? I need to return just that array because the returned items in the array will be looped through to create a URL routing scheme.

Answer 1

You need to make your regex pattern 'non-greedy' by adding a '?' after the '.+'

By default, '*' and '+' are greedy in that they will match as long a string of chars as possible, ignoring any matches that might occur within the string.

Non-greedy makes the pattern only match the shortest possible match.

See Watch Out for The Greediness! for a better explanation.

Or alternately, change your regex to

\(([^\)]+)\) 

which will match any grouping of parens that do not, themselves, contain parens.

Answer 2

Use this expression:

/\(([^()]+)\)/g 

e.g:

function() {     var mts = "something/([0-9])/([a-z])".match(/\(([^()]+)\)/g );     alert(mts[0]);     alert(mts[1]); }