Check whether a string matches a regex in JS

Question

I want to use JavaScript (can be with jQuery) to do some client-side validation to check whether a string matches the regex:

^([a-z0-9]{5,})$

Answer 1

Use /youregexp/.test(yourString) if you only want to know whether your string matches the regexp.

Answer 2

try

 /^[a-z\d]{5,}$/.test(str)

console.log( /^[a-z\d]{5,}$/.test("abc123") );

console.log( /^[a-z\d]{5,}$/.test("ab12") );

Answer 3

I would recommend using the execute method which returns null if no match exists otherwise it returns a helpful object.

let case1 = /^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/.exec("abc1");
console.log(case1); //null

let case2 = /^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/.exec("pass3434");
console.log(case2); // ['pass3434', 'pass3434', index:0, input:'pass3434', groups: undefined]

Answer 4

You can use match() as well:

if (str.match(/^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/)) {
    alert("match!");
}

But test() seems to be faster as you can read here.

Important difference between match() and test():

match() works only with strings, but test() works also with integers.

12345.match(/^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/); // ERROR
/^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/.test(12345);  // true
/^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/.test(null);   // false

// Better watch out for undefined values
/^([a-z0-9]{5,})$/.test(undefined); // true

Answer 5

Here's an example that looks for certain HTML tags so it's clear that /someregex/.test() returns a boolean:

if(/(span|h[0-6]|li|a)/i.test("h3")) alert('true');