Text Processing with JavaScript

Recipe 26

Matching One of Several Alternatives with the Vertical Bar (|)

Task

Imagine you want to match specific variations of the word “week,” including “weekend” and “weekly,” but not “weekday.” You want the match to be at word boundaries, so other words like “Newsweek” wouldn’t count as a match. What you need is a way to define alternative patterns in the regex.

Solution

Use a vertical bar (|) to form an alternation. The vertical bar character will tell the regex engine to match any one of a series of patterns:

part_2/vertical_bar/vertical_bar_ex1.js

const re = /\bweek\b|\bweekend\b|\bweekly\b/;

re.test("How much do you earn per week?");             // → true
re.test("Employees are paid weekly.");                 // → true
re.test( ...