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w vs W in JavaScript Regex
This article discusses about the \w vs \W in JavaScript regex. The \w and \W meta characters are used to match the characters of a given string. \w and \W are different from each other. \w (character) is equivalent to [a-zA-Z0-9_] that means it matches any single letter, number, or underscore.
The characters that are not matched by the \w are matched by the \W. \W is equivalent to [^a-zA-Z0-9_] that means it matches any character other than letter, number and underscore. To match a string with a pattern, the possible methods are: string.match(pattern), string.search(pattern), pattern.exec(string), pattern.test(text). We use match method only in these examples.
Syntax
The syntax for \w regex is ?
RegExp("\w", "g")
Or
/\w/g
Example 1
This is an example program to use the \w metacharacter.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>\w vs \W in JavaScript regex</title>
</head>
<body style="text-align : center">
<h3>\w vs \W in JavaScript regex</h3>
<p id='result'></p>
<script>
var string = "!#@ Tutorials point is one of the best e-learning platform @#!"
var reg_ex = new RegExp("\w", "g");
var output = string.match(reg_ex);
document.getElementById('result').innerHTML = output;
</script>
</body>
</html>
On executing the above code, the following output is generated.
Example 2
The syntax for \W regex is ?
RegExp("\W", "g")
Or
/\W/g
This is an example program to use the \W metacharacter.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>\w vs \W in JavaScript regex</title>
</head>
<body style="text-align : center">
<h3>\w vs \W in JavaScript regex</h3>
<p id='result'></p>
<script>
var string = "!#@ Tutorials point is one of the best e-learning platform @#!"
var reg_ex = new RegExp("\W", "g");
var output = string.match(reg_ex);
document.getElementById('result').innerHTML = output;
</script>
</body>
</html>
On executing the above code, the following output is generated.
Example3
This is an example program to compare the result for \w and \W pattern and user defined patterns.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>\w vs \W in JavaScript regex</title>
</head>
<body style="text-align : center">
<h3>\w vs \W in JavaScript regex</h3>
<p id='result'></p>
<script>
var string = "!#@_ Tutorials point is one of the best e-learning platform _@#!"
var reg_ex1 = new RegExp("\w", "g"); //Existing Regular expression Metacharacter \w
var reg_ex2 = /[a-zA-Z0-9_]/g; // User-defined pattern
var reg_ex11 = /\W/g; //Existing Regular expression Metacharacter \W
var reg_ex22 = /[^a-zA-Z0-9_]/g; // User-defined pattern
var output1 = string.match(reg_ex1);
var output2 = string.match(reg_ex2);
var output11 = string.match(reg_ex11);
var output22 = string.match(reg_ex22);
document.getElementById('result').innerHTML = 'For \w :'+'<br/>'+' Using RegExp("\w", "g") : '+output1+'<br/>'+'Using /[a-zA-Z0-9_]/g : '+output2+'<br/>'+'For \W :'+'<br/>'+'Using /\W/g : '+output11+'<br/>'+'Using /[^a-zA-Z0-9_]/g : '+output22;
</script>
</body>
</html>
On executing the above code, the following output is generated.
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