How do I use string.replace with regular expressions

Question

I'm trying to strip the file extension from a file name using a regular expression and String.replace

I'm using this regex: /^.*(\\..*)/ which should capture the extension, or at least everything after a .

Doing str.replace(/^.*(\\..*)/,""); just gives me a blank string.

Doing str.replace(/^.*(\\..*)/,""); gives me ".pdf"

fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/KAK82/

Answer 1

You need to capture (with (.*) ) the first bit of you file, not the extension itself:

var string = "CommercialTribe - Copy (14).pdf"
var re = /^(.*)\..*/;
console.log(string.replace(re,'$1'));

// Output: "CommercialTribe - Copy (14)"

Fiddle

Answer 2

There are two options here:

• Only match the extension and replace it with an empty string:

   str.replace(/\\.[^.]*$/, ""); 

• Match the entire string and capture everything but the extension, and then replace with the contents of that match:

   str.replace(/^(.*)\\..*$/, "$1");