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Cover image for Cheatsheet for the Regex Cheatsheet, Part II: Character Classes
Analogy | Absence | Example
Analogy | Absence | Example

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Cheatsheet for the Regex Cheatsheet, Part II: Character Classes

#beginners #javascript

Intro

I was recently doing a code challenge for a job interview that required me to strip out all nonalphabetic characters. "Ah! I should use Regular Expressions for this!" I thought in triumph, impressed that I even knew what regular expressions were. That fleeting moment of glory faded once I decided to brush up on regular expressions and landed on the encouragingly-named Regular Expressions Cheatsheet. I had no idea how to use it!

So, for people like me, here is a Cheatsheet for the Regular Expressions Cheatsheet, Part 2: Character Classes

Alt Text

What are Character Classes?

A character class is a special notation that matches any symbol from a certain set.

Anatomy of a regular expression

  1. Forward slashes go on either end like so: /something/
  2. Add g for "global" at the end to find every instance, like so: /something/g
  3. Add m to "multi line" to the beginning/end of each line, not just the beginning/end of each string, like /something/g or /something/gm

Character Classes

\s White space
  • \s is used in /\s/gm to find the following]: The lion roared
  • Example on regex101.com
  • Example in Javascript: 
let sentence = "The lion roared";
let regex = /\s/gm;
let found = sentence.match(regex);
console.log(found); // [ ' ', ' ' ]
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\S Not white space
  • \S is used in /\S/gm to find the following]: The lion roared
  • Example on regex101.com
  • Example in Javascript: 
let sentence = "The lion roared";
let regex = /\S/gm;
let found = sentence.match(regex);
console.log(found); //
[ 'T', 'h', 'e', 'l',
  'i', 'o', 'n', 'r',
  'o', 'a', 'r', 'e',
  'd']
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\d Digit
  • \d is used in /\d/gm to find the following]: The 3 lions roared
  • Example on regex101.com
  • Example in Javascript: 
let sentence = "The 3 lions roared";
let regex = /\d/gm;
let found = sentence.match(regex);
console.log(found); // [ '3' ]
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\D Not digit
  • \D is used in /\D/gm to find the following]: The 3 lions roared
  • Example on regex101.com
  • Example in Javascript: 
let sentence = "The 3 lions roared";
let regex = /\D/gm;
let found = sentence.match(regex);
console.log(found); // 
[
  'T', 'h', 'e', ' ', ' ',
  'l', 'i', 'o', 'n', 's',
  ' ', 'r', 'o', 'a', 'r',
  'e', 'd'
]
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\w Word
  • \w is used in /\w/gm to find the following]: The lion roared
  • Example on regex101.com
  • Example in Javascript: 
let sentence = "The lion roared";
let regex = /\w/gm;
let found = sentence.match(regex);
console.log(found); // [
  'T', 'h', 'e', 'l',
  'i', 'o', 'n', 'r',
  'o', 'a', 'r', 'e',
  'd'
]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
\W Not word
  • \W is used in /\W/gm to find the following]: The lion roared
  • Example on regex101.com
  • Example in Javascript: 
let sentence = "The lion roared";
let regex = /\W/gm;
let found = sentence.match(regex);
console.log(found); // [ ' ', ' ' ]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Dunce Corner

I can't make any of the following work. Try them out and report back in the comments:

\c Control character: Try on regex101.com
\x Hexadecimal digit: Try on regex101.com
\O Octal digit: Try on regex101.com

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