how to exclude single quotes from the reg expression /\W+/ in javascript?

Question

I want to split a paragraph of text using regex, but /\W+/ splits can't into can and t.
Is there any way to define a regular expression that splits whenever a character other than a-z,A-Z,0-9 and '(single quotes) is encountered?

 text=text.split(/\W+/);

No, that's not what I wrote. You can split on a negative character class which excludes word characters plus single quote. If you add some sample data to your question, maybe more can be said. — Tim Biegeleisen, Dec 16 '19 at 12:58
@TimBiegeleisen text is a string which contain some sentences,i am making a word counting application,and the current regexp splits something like can't into 'can' and 't' and i want to consider can't as a single word — alvinz20, Dec 16 '19 at 13:09
Can your text also contain words which are escaped in single quotes? In other words, is single quote always an apostrophe, or could it be used in a different way? — Tim Biegeleisen, Dec 16 '19 at 13:12
What version of JavaScript are you using? Is it a recent version of Node, or some browser version? — Tim Biegeleisen, Dec 16 '19 at 13:14
@TimBiegeleisen i am running this on browser,the text comes from a textarea element — alvinz20, Dec 16 '19 at 13:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 16 '19 at 13:45

0

The following regex splits on everything you asked for , that is a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and ' :

text=text.split(/[^a-zA-Z0-9\']/);

answered Dec 16 '19 at 13:45

Chirag Rajavat

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how to exclude single quotes from the reg expression /\W+/ in javascript?

1 Answers1