Advanced Replace

[Smoogan]

Hello everyone,

I have the following replace function:

item.value = item.value.replace(/[.](\s{1,2})?/g, ".").replace(/[.]/g, ". ");

Ok. My problem is and I'm not really sure where to start is that I want to only replace the full stops that have a Alphabetic character preceding it.

Any ideas... I just want a push in the right direction.

Thanks
Smoogan

 

[tsuji]

>item.value = item.value.replace(/[.](\s{1,2})?/g, ".").replace(/[.]/g, ". ");
I am going to keep this part of yours which is a bit ambiguous in intention.

>...that I want to only replace the full stops that have a Alphabetic character preceding it.
It would then be this, for instance.

[tt]item.value = item.value.replace(/([a-zA-Z][.])(\s{1,2})?/g, "$1").replace(/([a-zA-Z][.])/g, "$1 ");[/tt]

 

[Smoogan]

Hi tsuji,

Thanks for that, can you esplain alittle more on what excatly you done?

Also how would you change my orginal code? How you give an example.

thanks

 

[tsuji]

Any where (in both replace) {[a-zA-Z][.]) : a period preceded with an alphabet is retained (ie, "$1", the first group of submatches). In the 2nd replace, the part (\s{1,2})? is discarded. In the 1st replace, an empty space is added to that particle.

If the period is not preceded with an alphabetic, nothing will be matched and hence nothing being replaced.

 

[Smoogan]

I'm still a little confused. At least I know it works.

 

[tsuji]

If the original pattern is made by you, you should be in a position to understand what I explained. If it is not, I cannot give a whole lecture on that, it would be very pretentious for those in the know.

I go googling and choose this among others for you to read.

http://www.daaq.net/old/javascript/index.php?page=regexp+grouping&parent=js+regexp