Regular expression to match group of consecutive characters

Question

I need a JS expression to match a combination of /* characters

I have this now

/(\b\/*\b)g

but it does not work.

ETA: any string that has /* should match

so...

• Hello NO MATCH
• 123 NO MATCH
• /* HELLo MATCH
• /*4534534 MATCH

Answer 1

Since you only want to detect if it contains something you don't have to use regex and can just use .includes("/*"):

function fits(str) {
  return str.includes("/*");
}

var test = [
  "Hello NO MATCH",
  "123 NO MATCH",
  "/* HELLo MATCH",
  "/*4534534 MATCH"
];

var result = test.map(str => fits(str));
console.log(result);

Answer 2

You might use a positive lookahead and test if the string contains /*?

If so, match any character one or more times .+ from the beginning of the string ^ until the end of the string $

^(?=.*\/\*).+$

Explanation

• ^ Begin of the string
• (?= Positive lookahead that asserts what is on the right
  • .*\/\* Match any character zero or more time and then /*
• ) Close positive lookahead
• .+ Match any character one or more times
• $ End of the string

const strings = [
  "Hello NO MATCH",
  "123 NO MATCH",
  "/* HELLo MATCH",
  "/*4534534 MATCH",
  "test(((*/*"
];
let pattern = /^(?=.*\/\*).+$/;

strings.forEach((s) => {
  console.log(s + " ==> " + pattern.test(s));
});

I think you could also use indexOf() to get the index of the first occurence of /*. It will return -1 if the value is not found.

const strings = [
  "Hello NO MATCH",
  "123 NO MATCH",
  "/* HELLo MATCH",
  "/*4534534 MATCH",
  "test(((*/*test",
  "test /",
  "test *",
  "test /*",
  "/*"
];
let pattern = /^(?=.*\/\*).+$/;

strings.forEach((s) => {
  console.log(s + " ==> " + pattern.test(s));
  console.log(s + " ==> " + (s.indexOf("/*") !== -1));
});