Abreviation for white spaces at the beginning and at the end

Question

Is there any way to abbreviate this?

/ 1111 | 2222 /

I mean, I want a regex that matches 1111 or 2222 when they have white spaces at the beginning and at the end.

I have tried this below but it is not working:

/ 1111|2222 /

`/ (?:1111|2222) /`? – Wiktor Stribiżew Jan 02 '19 at 10:51 — Wiktor Stribiżew, Jan 02 '19 at 10:51

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 02 '19 at 10:59

The / 1111|2222 / pattern matches 1111 or 2222 .

You want to use a grouping construct here:

/ (?:1111|2222) /

The (?:1111|2222) is a non-capturing group that allows matching alternative char/pattern sequences.

Or, with a capturing group (good for regex engines that do not support non-capturing groups, e.g. POSIX ERE, XML Schema regex engines):

/ (1111|2222) /

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