Converting user input string to regular expression

Question

I am designing a regular expression tester in HTML and JavaScript. The user will enter a regex, a string, and choose the function they want to test with (e.g. search, match, replace, etc.) via radio button and the program will display the results when that function is run with the specified arguments. Naturally there will be extra text boxes for the extra arguments to replace and such.

My problem is getting the string from the user and turning it into a regular expression. If I say that they don't need to have //'s around the regex they enter, then they can't set flags, like g and i. So they have to have the //'s around the expression, but how can I convert that string to a regex? It can't be a literal since its a string, and I can't pass it to the RegExp constructor since its not a string without the //'s. Is there any other way to make a user input string into a regex? Will I have to parse the string and flags of the regex with the //'s then construct it another way? Should I have them enter a string, and then enter the flags separately?

Answer 1

Use the JavaScript RegExp object constructor.

var re = new RegExp("\\w+");
re.test("hello");

You can pass flags as a second string argument to the constructor. See the documentation for details.

Answer 2

This will work also when the string is invalid or does not contain flags etc:

function regExpFromString(q) {
  let flags = q.replace(/.*\/([gimuy]*)$/, '$1');
  if (flags === q) flags = '';
  let pattern = (flags ? q.replace(new RegExp('^/(.*?)/' + flags + '$'), '$1') : q);
  try { return new RegExp(pattern, flags); } catch (e) { return null; }
}

console.log(regExpFromString('\\bword\\b'));
console.log(regExpFromString('\/\\bword\\b\/gi'));
            

Answer 3

You can ask for flags using checkboxes then do something like this:

var userInput = formInput;
var flags = '';
if(formGlobalCheckboxChecked) flags += 'g';
if(formCaseICheckboxChecked) flags += 'i';
var reg = new RegExp(userInput, flags);