Regex wont understand white space

Question

Have code:

var regexp = new RegExp("[^a-zA-Z\-\s]", "g");
val = val.replace(regexp,'');

It need too leave letters ( a-zA-Z ), - ( \\- ) and white spaces ( \\s ) and remove all other symbols.

But now it remove white spaces too.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You need to double the backslashes:

var regexp = new RegExp("[^a-zA-Z\\-\\s]", "g");

or, better, use a regex literal (and simplify it):

var regexp = /[^a-z\s-]/gi;

Answer 2

Your slashes need to be escaped in a string literal.

A simple solution is to use a regex literal :

var regexp = /[^a-zA-Z\-\s]/g

Answer 3

Here is a JavaScript Regex Generator tool i came across if anyone is interested.

Was quite useful for regex amateurs like me.