90

I see an line in my JavaScript code like this:

var regex = /[^\w\s]/gi;

What's the meaning of this /gi in the regex?

Other part I can understand as it accepts a group of word and spaces, but not /gi.

Peter Mortensen
  • 28,342
  • 21
  • 95
  • 123
batman
  • 3,125
  • 3
  • 16
  • 36

2 Answers2

112
g modifier: global. All matches (don't return on first match)

i modifier: insensitive. Case insensitive match (ignores case of [a-zA-Z])

In your case though i is immaterial as you dont capture [a-zA-Z].

For input like !@#$ if g modifier is not there regex will return first match !See here.

If g is there it will return the whole or whatever it can match.See here

vks
  • 63,206
  • 9
  • 78
  • 110
29

The beginning and ending / are called delimiters. They tell the interpreter where the regex begins and ends. Anything after the closing delimiter is called a "modifier," in this case g and i.

The g and i modifiers have these meanings:

  • g = global, match all instances of the pattern in a string, not just one
  • i = case-insensitive (so, for example, /a/i will match the string "a" or "A".

In the context you gave (/[^\w\s]/gi), the i is meaningless, because there are no case-specific portions of the regex.

elixenide
  • 42,388
  • 14
  • 70
  • 93