RegExp Object (Windows Scripting - JScript)

Article
07/17/2015

An intrinsic global object that stores information about the results of regular expression pattern matches.

Syntax

RegExp.property

Remarks

The required property argument can be any one of the RegExp object properties.

The RegExp object cannot be created directly, but is always available for use. Until a successful regular expression search has been completed, the initial values of the various properties of the RegExp object are as follows:

Property	Shorthand	Initial Value
index		-1
input	$_	Empty string.
lastIndex		-1
lastMatch	$&	Empty string.
lastParen	$+	Empty string.
leftContext	$`	Empty string.
rightContext	$'	Empty string.
$1 - $9	$1 - $9	Empty string.

Its properties have undefined as their value until a successful regular expression search has been completed.

The global RegExp object should not be confused with the Regular Expression object. Even though they sound like the same thing, they are separate and distinct. The properties of the global RegExp object contain continually updated information about each match as it occurs, while the properties of the Regular Expression object contain only information about the matches that occur with that instance of the Regular Expression.

The following example performs a regular expression search. It displays matches and submatches from the global RegExp object, and from the array that is returned by the exec method.

var newLine = "<br />";

var re = /(\w+)@(\w+)\.(\w+)/g
var src = "Please send mail to george@contoso.com and someone@example.com. Thanks!"

var result;
var s = "";

// Get the first match.
result = re.exec(src);

while (result != null) {
    // Show the entire match.
    s += newLine;

    // Show the match and submatches from the RegExp global object.
    s += "RegExp.lastMatch: " + RegExp.lastMatch + newLine;
    s += "RegExp.$1: " + RegExp.$1 + newLine;
    s += "RegExp.$2: " + RegExp.$2 + newLine;
    s += "RegExp.$3: " + RegExp.$3 + newLine;

    // Show the match and submatches from the array that is returned
    // by the exec method.
    for (var index = 0; index < result.length; index++) {
        s +=  index + ": ";
        s += result[index];
        s += newLine;
    }

    // Get the next match.
    result = re.exec(src);
}
document.write(s);

// Output:
//  RegExp.lastMatch: george@contoso.com
//  RegExp.$1: george
//  RegExp.$2: contoso
//  RegExp.$3: com
//  0: george@contoso.com
//  1: george
//  2: contoso
//  3: com

//  RegExp.lastMatch: someone@example.com
//  RegExp.$1: someone
//  RegExp.$2: example
//  RegExp.$3: com
//  0: someone@example.com
//  1: someone
//  2: example
//  3: com

Properties

Methods

The RegExp object has no methods.

Requirements

Version 3

Change History

Date	History	Reason
September 2010	Modified the example.	Information enhancement.

September 2010

Modified the example.

Information enhancement.

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