JavaScript replace tab characters
From Regex Regular Expression Encyclopedia
This wiki is for replacing tab characters in a string with a different character using JavaScript. In this recipe, we use a pipe (|) to replace the tab.
[edit] code
<html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <form name="form1"> <input type="textbox" name="txtInput" /> <script type="text/javascript"> function validate() { if (! document.form1.txtInput.value.match(/^(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[0-9]).{7,15}$/)) { alert("Please enter valid value!") } else { alert("Success!") } } </script> <input type="button" name="btnSubmit" onclick="validate()" value="Go" /> </form> </body> </html>
[edit] How It Works
Breaking the recipe down yields simply the following:
| Regular Expression | Description |
|---|---|
| \t | is a tab, replaced by . . . |
| | | a pipe character. |
By default, the regular expression object in the .NET Framework replaces each occurrence of the text that matches the search regex. However, the VBScript and JavaScript regular expres- sion objects work differently because an option must be specified to replace each match. You can find more about these options in the “Syntax Overview” section of this book.
[edit] Variations
Since this is such a simple recipe, it has an extensive number of variations. You could replace the character class representing a tab with other character classes, especially the \s character class. The JavaScript variation /\s/g would replace each instance of whitespace with |.
One variation on the previous recipe is to use a qualifier after the character class to replace more than one instance of a tab at once. For instance, if you want to replace two tabs, you could use something such as /\t{2}/g in the JavaScript recipe.
