Introduction

You want to allow users to pass in a RegExp with flags or without from string input. Here's how javascript would handle these:

^Hola$     // matches only the string 'Hola'
/^Hola$/   // same - matches only the string 'Hola'
/^Hola$/i  // case insensitve match of 'Hola'

Unfortunately new RegExp(string) doesn't parse out these flags as javascript would. This library creates that behavior - you will get exactly the same behavior as if you had the unquoted string in your javascript source.

Of course the bold and brave can get the same effect by using 'eval'. Because this module is all about creating a regex from a user provided input string - the use of eval in this context scares the b-jesus out of me. So then this module is for the weak of heart - like me - who would prefer to avoid the potential of someone hijacking my software by way of some clever javascript introduced where a regexp was expected.

Invalid regex expressions in fact produce a 'null' value at this time which you should look for.

Installation

npm install string-to-regexp --save

Usage

var stringToRegExp = require('string-to-regexp.js');

/^Hola$/i === stringToRegExp('/^Hola$/i');  // true
/^Hola$/  === stringToRegExp('/^Hola$/');   // true
/^Hola$/  === stringToRegExp('^Hola$');     // true

Tests

npm test

Contributing

In lieu of a formal style guide, please maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Run 'grunt ci' to make sure all tests and jshint rules pass.

Release History

• 0.1.0 Initial release

Reference

• Regular_Expressions - Advanced_Searching_With_Flags
• JavaScript RegExp Reference