How to compare two regexps?

Question

Why do

console.log(/a/ == /a/);

and

var regexp1 = /a/;
var regexp2 = /a/;
console.log(regexp1 == regexp2);

bo

Answer 1

For primitive data types like int, string, boolean javascript knows what to compare, but for objects like date or regex that operator only looks at the place in memory, because you define your regexes independently they have two different places in memory so they are not equal.

Answer 2

Try this:

String(regexp1) === String(regexp2))

You are getting false because those two are different objects.

Answer 3

Just a guess - but doesn't JavaScript create a RegExp object for your regex, and therefore because you have created two different objects (even though they have the same "value") they're actually different?

Answer 4

"Problem":

regex is an object- a reference type, so the comparsion is done by reference, and those are two different objects.

console.log(typeof /a/); // "object"

If both operands are objects, then JavaScript compares internal references which are equal when operands refer to the same object in memory.

MDN

Solution:

​var a = /a/;
var b = /a/;
console.log(​​​a.toString() === b.toString()); // true! yessss!

Live DEMO

Another "hack" to force the toString() on the regexes is:

console.log(a + "" === b + "");​