Utilities

static sanitize

Escape characters expected special by regex engines (all of ., |, *, ?, +, (, ), {, }, ^, $, \, :, =, [ and ]).

This method will not be accessible from outside the source file since VerEx() returns an instance of the class rather than the class itself.

const stringToEscape = '(http://example.com?arg=foo+bar)';

// => '\(http:\/\/example.com\?arg\=foo\+bar\)'
console.log(VerbalExpression.sanitize(stringToEscape));

sanitize is a static method on the VerbalExpression class. However, it is also exposed as VerEx().sanitize.

add

Append a literal expression to the object.

const expr = VerEx();
expr.add('(foo)?(?:bar)*');

console.log(expr); // => /(foo)?(?:bar)*/gm