article.md

Alternation (OR) |

Alternation is the term in regular expression that is actually a simple "OR".

In a regular expression it is denoted with a vertical line character pattern:|.

For instance, we need to find programming languages: HTML, PHP, Java or JavaScript.

The corresponding regexp: pattern:html|php|java(script)?.

A usage example:

let reg = /html|php|css|java(script)?/gi;

let str = "First HTML appeared, then CSS, then JavaScript";

alert( str.match(reg) ); // 'HTML', 'CSS', 'JavaScript'

We already know a similar thing -- square brackets. They allow to choose between multiple character, for instance pattern:gr[ae]y matches match:gray or match:grey.

Square brackets allow only characters or character sets. Alternation allows any expressions. A regexp pattern:A|B|C means one of expressions A, B or C.

For instance:

• pattern:gr(a|e)y means exactly the same as pattern:gr[ae]y.
• pattern:gra|ey means match:gra or match:ey.

To separate a part of the pattern for alternation we usually enclose it in parentheses, like this: pattern:before(XXX|YYY)after.

Regexp for time

In previous chapters there was a task to build a regexp for searching time in the form hh:mm, for instance 12:00. But a simple pattern:\d\d:\d\d is too vague. It accepts 25:99 as the time (as 99 seconds match the pattern).

How can we make a better one?

We can apply more careful matching. First, the hours:

• If the first digit is 0 or 1, then the next digit can by anything.
• Or, if the first digit is 2, then the next must be pattern:[0-3].

As a regexp: pattern:[01]\d|2[0-3].

Next, the minutes must be from 0 to 59. In the regexp language that means pattern:[0-5]\d: the first digit 0-5, and then any digit.

Let's glue them together into the pattern: pattern:[01]\d|2[0-3]:[0-5]\d.

We're almost done, but there's a problem. The alternation pattern:| now happens to be between pattern:[01]\d and pattern:2[0-3]:[0-5]\d.

That's wrong, as it should be applied only to hours [01]\d OR 2[0-3]. That's a common mistake when starting to work with regular expressions.

The correct variant:

let reg = /([01]\d|2[0-3]):[0-5]\d/g;

alert("00:00 10:10 23:59 25:99 1:2".match(reg)); // 00:00,10:10,23:59