What is the JavaScript equivalent of preg_match? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How can i use preg_match in jQuery?

What is the jquery equivalent of the PHP preg_match feature? In PHP it would be :

preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/', $str);

Which checks if the string has anything other than letters and numbers. I'd like to add some client sided validation to my site, but I've looked and looked and can't quite find the jQuery equivalent of this. Thanks.

Answer 1

In plain JavaScript (no jQuery needed for this), you would just use the .match() method of the string object which will return null if no matches and an array if there are matches:

var str = "myteststring";
if (str.match(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/)) {
    // contains illegal characters
}