Matching regex, Dealing with numbers and letters

Question

So i am using javascript and i need to use regex to match some data with a mix of numbers and letters, but since i am learning regex at the moment this task is too complicated for me to understand and make it work like i want it, any ideas ?

[ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [ 1113B86JD ] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [ 115M3X2G9 ] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [ 1113P86JD ] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [ 314PTVPNL ] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] 114PAVPNL RANDOM

90% of the time the data i want is between two brackets length grater then 5 characters, so i found two regex's, And the rest of the data is still mix of numbers and letters but without the brackets.

1. [(.*?)]

For getting the data between brackets

2. ^([0-9]+[a-zA-Z]+|[a-zA-Z]+[0-9]+)[0-9a-zA-Z]*$

For getting the mix of numbers and letters

Now how to i combine both, i tried a bunch of times to make it work but it didnt work, can someone help me with this.

Answer 1

The pattern you seem to be after is any combination of 9 letters and numbers (no more, no less). I also think you want is to have the search continue after the first match. If so, you use the global flag g . See Snippet for details.

SNIPPET

 var str = '[ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [1113B86JD] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [115M3X2G9] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [1113P86JD] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] [314PTVPNL] RANDOM [ABC][122/29] [13:40] [RANDOM_TEXT] [PRT] [TPT] [RANDOM] 114PAVPNL RANDOM'; var res = str.match(/(\\b\\w{9}\\b)/g); /* \\b word boundry || \\w Any word or number || {9} 9 of \\w || \\b word boundry */ console.log(res); 

Answer 2

You need to enclose your letters-and-digits regex (ie the second one without ^ and $ anchors) with special "compound brackets":

(?:^|\[|\s)((?:[0-9]+[a-zA-Z]+|[a-zA-Z]+[0-9]+)[0-9a-zA-Z]*)(?:$|\]|\s)

The opening "compound bracket" may be represented by start of text ( ^ ), an opening square bracket ( \\[ ) or a space ( \\s ). Hence the (?:^|\\[|\\s) at the start of the regex.

The closing "compound bracket" may be represented by end of text ( $ ), a closing square bracket ( \\] ) or a space ( \\s ). Hence the (?:$|\\]|\\s) at the end of the regex.

The letter and digit sequence you need is in the first capture group.

Demo: https://regex101.com/r/WLwu9p/1

Please note I made the group ( (...) ) from your second expression non-capturing ( (?:...) ) since in this particular case only grouping is required.