Over And Out - JavaScript

After reading this tutorial, I'm pretty sure you're going to look at JavaScript in a different light. The language you just saw wasn't the one most commonly associated with image swaps and browser detection. Rather, it was a powerful tool to help you execute pattern-matching tasks in the client quickly and efficiently.

I started off with a simple introduction to regular expressions and quickly moved to the search() and replace() methods of the JavaScript String object. These functions take a regular expression as parameter and allow you to carry out smart "search-and-replace" operations on string values. This was followed by an introduction to the hero behind the scenes: the core JavaScript Regexp object. This object comes with a host of methods and properties that allow ordinary programmers to leverage off the power of regular expressions in JavaScript.

To close this article, I developed a simple example that demonstrates the use of complex regular expressions to validate form input - a routine task in all Web-based applications. If you do this often, it makes sense for you to build a good library of regular expressions for common validations (if you already have one, send me some mail and tell me all about it).

Here are some additional URLs to help you understand the concept of regular expressions further:

Stringing Things Along, at
http://www.melonfire.com/community/columns/trog/article.php?id=173

Pattern Matching and Regular Expressions, at
http://www.webreference.com/js/column5/

Regular Expressions for client-side JavaScript, a free online quick reference by VisiBone at http://www.visibone.com/regular-expressions/

That's all for this article. See you soon!

Note: Examples are illustrative only, and are not meant for a production environment. Melonfire provides no warranties or support for the source code described in this article.