I'm trying to create regex for multiple strings separated by ma or space.

Lorem Ipsum // valid
Lorem, Ipsum //valid
Lorem, Ipsum, Ipsum, Ipsum // multiple valid
Lorem // invalid without space/ma

Here is what i have so far:

^\w+(,\s*\w+){3}$/

I'm trying to create regex for multiple strings separated by ma or space.

Lorem Ipsum // valid
Lorem, Ipsum //valid
Lorem, Ipsum, Ipsum, Ipsum // multiple valid
Lorem // invalid without space/ma

Here is what i have so far:

^\w+(,\s*\w+){3}$/

• javascript
• regex

• So they must have a space but optionally a ma? Or are ma separated values (with no space) also valid such as Lorem,Ipsum? Also, is Lorem ,Ipsum valid? On that note, are Lorem, , Ipsum, Lorem,, Ipsum or Lorem Ipsum valid? Basically, what are your exact requirements/conditions? – ctwheels Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 19:23
• Single words are accepted. If there is anything else after word example "Test" space or ma than it should be not accepted – Camila Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 19:37
• I'm sorry, it's not clear what you're looking for. – ctwheels Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 19:42
• 1 Are you looking for \w+(?:[, ]+\w+)+? – ctwheels Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 19:50
• Try ^\w+(?:(?:,\s\w+)+|(?:\s\w+)+)$ - it will match a string that starts with 1+ word chars, and then has 1 or more repetitions of , followed with a whitespace and 1+ word chars or 1+ repetitions of a space followed with 1+ word chars. Another way of writing it is ^\w+(?=(,?\s))(?:\1\w+)+$ – Wiktor Stribiżew Commented Dec 15, 2017 at 7:58

4 Answers 4

You may use

^\w+(?:(?:,\s\w+)+|(?:\s\w+)+)$

See the regex demo.

The regex matches:

• ^ - start of string
• \w+ - 1+ word chars
• (?: - start of an alternation group:
  • (?:,\s\w+)+ - ,, whitespace, 1+ word chars
  • | - or
  • (?:\s\w+)+ - whitespace and then 1+ word chars
• ) - end of group
• $ - end of string.

You may shorten the pattern using a lookahead and a capturing group:

^\w+(?=(,?\s))(?:\1\w+)+$

See the regex demo. Here, the difference is (?=(,?\s))(?:\1\w+)+:

• (?=(,?\s)) - a positive lookahead that checks if there is an optional , and then a whitespace immediately to the right of the current location and captures that sequence into Group 1
• (?:\1\w+)+ - 1 or more sequences of:
  • \1 - the same text captured into Group 1
  • \w+ - 1+ word chars.

See the regex demo.

Try this regex:

^(\w+[, ]+)*\w+$

Assuming that you want to match the whole phrase:

^(\w+(,|\s)\s*)+\w+$

should do the trick.

Since none of the above worked for me, I came up with this:

/([^,\s]+)/g