adding span tag with new id before each round bracket

Question

I have some text with something like verse references, that I need to add a span tag automatically (when the page is accessed) with an new id before each round bracket.

Input:

<p>some text (Jn 1:2), more text sentences (Gn 5-12, 23 ref) and more etc.</p>

Output:

<p>some text <span id="1">(Jn 1:2)</span>, more text sdfkljgdf <span id="2">(Gn 5-12, 23)</span> and more etc.</p>

So it adds the span tag around each round brackets ( ) even if they are not in the same line (if the closing ) is in another line of the code).

I tried something like the following.. and I am open for anything that works using php or Javascript..

var myString_before = str.split("(")[count];
//alert (myString_before);

//get all text before )
var myString_after = myString_before.split(")")[0];
alert(" ref: " + myString_after);

if (x != true) {
    $('span').each(function (k) {
        var replace_str = $(this).html().replace(/\(/g, '<div 
        style="display: inline" id= "' + pos + '">(</div>');
        $(this).html(replace_str);
    })
}
x = document.getElementsByTagName('div')[count].hasAttribute("style");

Answer 1

You can use a mix of jQuery's .html() and String.replace:

let i = 0;
$('p').html((_, oldHtml) => 
  oldHtml.replace(/\([^)]+\)/g, match => `<span id="${++i}">${match}</span>`)
);

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<p>some text (Jn 1:2), more text sentences (Gn 5-12, 23 ref) and more etc.</p>

(The regexp simply matches anything between parentheses, including them.)