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javascriptregexstringstring-matching

Match everything outside of two strings

For an input of

*something here*another stuff here

I want to match everything that's outside of the two asterisk (*).

Expected output after regex:

another stuff here

I figured out how to match everything inside of the (*) /(?<=\*)(.*)(?=\*)/ but I can't match everything outside. Noticed that I don't wish to match the *.

Solution

  • You can remove substring(s) between asterisks and trim the string after:

    s.replace(/\*[^*]*\*/g, '').trim()
s.replace(/\*.*?\*/g, '').trim()

    See the regex demo.

    Details

    • \* - an asterisk
    • [^*]* - any zero or more chars other than an asterisk
    • .*? - any zero or more chars other than line break chars, as few as possible (NOTE: if you use .*, you will get an unexpected output in case when the string has multiple substrings between asterisks)
    • \* - an asterisk

    See a JavaScript demo:

    console.log("*something here*another stuff here".replace(/\*[^*]*\*/g, '').trim())
// => another stuff here