JS Regex to check that string only includes anchor

Question

I am trying to create a regex that will return true only when the string only contains an anchor like so <a href="www.something.com">Link</a>.

Currently I have the following regex which almost works (?=.*^<a)(?=.*<\/a>).*/g

This works for the following scenarios:

<a href="www.something.com">Link</a> - Matches successfully

words before <a href="www.something.com">Link</a> - No matches - success

<a href="www.something.com">Link</a> words after - finds match - Not successful :(

I think I'm pretty close, I just need to know how to not find a match if there are any characters after the </a>.

What if it contains two anchors, like `foosomething elsebar` — Barmar, Jan 30 '20 at 18:04
^ = beginning of string "^<" = starts with "<", $ = end of string ">$" = ends with ">" — Daniel F, Jan 30 '20 at 18:04
Also, consider this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/3930247 — technophyle, Jan 30 '20 at 18:05
There's no need to use the `g` modifier if you're using a regexp for testing, rather than returning the matching part of a string or replacing. — Barmar, Jan 30 '20 at 18:06
`^]+>[^>]+>$` this won't allow multiple links in one string, addressing Barmar's note. — Daniel F, Jan 30 '20 at 18:34

eMontielG · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-30T19:21:51.253

1

Add a $ after the last >

(?=.*^<a)(?=.*<\/a>$).*

Alternatively, this regex matches links and discards everything else, irregardless of whether there are one or more links in the same line.

<a.*?\/a>

edited Jan 30 '20 at 19:21

answered Jan 30 '20 at 18:08

eMontielG

Amazing, thanks for this! I was very close, just hadn't put the last character after the angle. – Tom Pinchen Jan 31 '20 at 14:41

1 Answers1