regexUnescape

Converts escaped regex strings back to their original form. Does the opposite of RegExp.escape.

What it does

regexUnescape("\\n"); // → actual newline
regexUnescape("\\*"); // → "*"
regexUnescape("\\\\"); // → "\"

Install

npm install regex-unescape
# or
yarn add regex-unescape
pnpm install regex-unescape
bun add regex-unescape

Usage

import { regexUnescape } from "regex-unescape";

regexUnescape(String.raw`\\n\\t`); // → newline + tab
regexUnescape(String.raw`\*\+`); // → "*+"

// Throws on non-string input (same as RegExp.escape)
regexUnescape(123); // ❌ Error: input argument must be a string

What gets converted

| Input | Output | Note | | -------- | ------- | ---------------- | | \\n | newline | Escape sequences | | \\t | tab | | | \\* | * | Special chars | | \\ | \ | Backslashes | | \x41 | A | Hex codes | | \u2764 | ❤ | Unicode |

Round-trip with RegExp.escape

const original = "Hello*World\n";
const escaped = RegExp.escape(original);
const back = regexUnescape(escaped);
// back === original ✓

License

MIT