How to Match Exact String in JavaScript

JavaScript allows you to match strings in several different ways. Typically, when you match a string in JavaScript, it also matches strings with extra characters before and/or after the string. Sometimes you may need to match exact string in JavaScript. In this article, we will learn how to match exact string in JavaScript.

How to Match Exact String in JavaScript

Let us say you have the following string.

var a ="abcdefghidefjkl";

Typically, we use the following regular expression to match string containing substring def. The following command returns first occurrence.

substr = string.match(/def/);

We use the following expression to get all occurrences.

substr = string.match(/def/g);

But both the above expressions will also match strings that contain extra characters before and after the target expression.

If you only want exact match of target string you need to add ^ and $ before and after the target string respectively.

substr = string.match(/^def$/g);

In the above regular expression, ^ character means starting with and $ sign indicates ending with. So basically, the above regular expression means starting & ending with def, that is, exact match of def string.

In this article, we have learnt how to match exact string in JavaScript.

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