Finding substring between the first parentheses pair in a string using JavaScript Regex?

Question

Let's say I have a string:

var str1 = '(The cat (goes (meow)))'

I want to get The cat (goes (meow)) from this, which is inside the first pair of parentheses.

Which regex can I use to get this?

Another example:

var str2 = 'The cat (goes (meow))'

Now I want to get goes (meow) .

How would I go about doing this?

Answer 1

Use indexOf & lastIndexOf to get the first ( & last ) . The use substring to get the text in between these indexes

 var str1 = '(The cat (goes (meow)))'; var str2 = 'The cat (goes (meow))'; function getSubstring(str) { var firstOpenBracket = str.indexOf('('); var firstClosingBracket = str.lastIndexOf(')'); var getValue = str.substring(firstOpenBracket + 1, firstClosingBracket); console.log(getValue) } getSubstring(str1); getSubstring(str2) 

Answer 2

You can use this regex /\\((.*)\\)/ to match everything inside the outer most pair of parentheses. Try the code below.

 var regEx = /\\((.*)\\)/; var str1 = '(The cat (goes (meow)))'; var res = str1.match(regEx); console.log(res[1]); var str2 = 'The cat (goes (meow))'; var res = str2.match(regEx); console.log(res[1]);