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JavaScript Regular Expressions in JavaScript Regular Expressions Groups

Piotr Manczak
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Piotr Manczak
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 29,367 Points

Why does it work? I tried to match regular expressions.

Why does it work? I tried to match regular expressions: www.github.com github.com www.teamtreehouse.com teamtreehouse.com api.github.com

and exclude those: jsfiddle.net www.jsfiddle.net

I used: ((www.)|(api.)|)(github|teamtreehouse|).com This works but I am not so sure why. Especially this: ((www.)|(api.)|). Joel did not mention in his video case like this. Does it mean www. OR api. OR nothing at all?

1 Answer

Michael Hulet
Michael Hulet
47,913 Points

In JavaScript regular expressions, the vertical bar (|) acts as a logical OR. The subdomain part of your regular expression (((www.)|(api.)|)) will match 3 scenarios:

  1. The string starts with www.
  2. The string starts with api.
  3. The first character in the string is an empty string (in other words, the string is only either github.com or teamtreehouse.com)