Regex for key value pair

Question

I have a regex

(\w+)\s*:((?:\w+[-+*%])*?\w+)$

that matches key value pair like these -

key:value

key2:value2

But the regex match fails if the key and value are within quotes like these -

"key":value

"key2":"value2"

What modification can be done to make the regex match key and value within quotes also ?

Answer 1

You can use optional quotes on either side of key-value pairs like this:

/("?)\b(\w+)\1\s*:\s*("?)((?:\w+[-+*%])*?\w+)\b\3/g

RegEx Demo

Take note of group ("?) that captured an empty string or a double quote. On the other side we use a back-reference \\1 of this group for closing quote.