I have the following data posibilities

fnname()
fnname(value)
fnname(value,valueN)

I need a way to parse it with javascript regex to obtain an array

[fnname]
[fnname,value]
[fnname,value,valueN]

Thanks in advance!

I have the following data posibilities

fnname()
fnname(value)
fnname(value,valueN)

I need a way to parse it with javascript regex to obtain an array

[fnname]
[fnname,value]
[fnname,value,valueN]

Thanks in advance!

• javascript
• regex
• split

• 2 Do you need to handle nested function calls as in f(g(h(value))) – Nikola Dimitroff Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 6:51
• no, just this data set – rnrneverdies Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 6:53
• @AvinashRaj: I suspect OP showed [ and ] for array representation. – anubhava Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 6:59
• @anubhava yep, now only i realized that. – Avinash Raj Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 7:01
• @anubhava yes [] means array representation. sorry if unclear. – rnrneverdies Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 7:03

5 Answers 5

You could try matching rather than splitting,

> var re = /[^,()]+/g;
undefined
> var matches=[];
undefined
> while (match = re.exec(val))
... {
... matches.push(match[0]);
... }
5
> console.log(matches);
[ 'fnname', 'value', 'value2', 'value3', 'value4' ]

OR

> matches = val.match(re);
[ 'fnname',
  'value',
  'value2',
  'value3',
  'value4' ]

This should work for you:

var matches = string.split(/[(),]/g).filter(Boolean);

• Regex /[(),]/g is used to split on any of these 3 characters in the character class
• filter(Boolean) is used to discard all empty results from resulting array

Examples:

'fnname()'.split(/[(),]/g).filter(Boolean);
//=> ["fnname"]

'fnname(value,value2,value3,value4)'.split(/[(),]/g).filter(Boolean);
//=> ["fnname", "value", "value2", "value3", "value4"]

Taking some inspiration from other answers, and depending on the rules for identifiers:

str.match(/\w+/g)

Use split like so:

var val = "fnname(value,value2,value3,value4)";
var result = val.split(/[\,\(\)]+/);

This will produce:

["fnname", "value", "value2", "value3", "value4", ""]

Notice you need to handle empty entries :) You can do it using Array.filter:

result = result.filter(function(x) { return x != ""; });

Here's how you can do it in one line:

"fnname(value,value2,value3,value4)".split(/[\(,\)]/g).slice(0, -1);

Which will evaluate to

["fnname", "value", "value2", "value3", "value4"]