Regex to match asterisks, tildes, dashes and square brackets

Question

I've been trying to write a regex to match asterisks, tildes, dashes and square brackets.

What I have:

 const str = "The] quick [brown] fox **jumps** over ~~the~~ lazy dog --- in the [woods"; console.log(str.match(/[^\\]][^\\[\\]]*\\]?|\\]/g)); // [ // "The]", // " quick ", // "[brown]", // " fox **jumps** over ~~the~~ lazy dog --- in the ", // "[woods" // ]; 

What I want:

[
    "The]",
    " quick ",
    "[brown]",
    " fox ",
    "**jumps**",
    " over ",
    "~~the~~",
    " lazy dog ",
    "---",
    " in the ",
    "[woods"
];

Edit:

Some more examples/combinations of the string are:

"The] quick brown fox jumps [over] the lazy [dog"
// [ "The]", " quick brown fox jumps ", "[over]", " the lazy ", "[dog" ]


"The~~ quick brown fox jumps [over] the lazy **dog"
// [ "The~~", " quick brown fox jumps ", "[over]", " the lazy ", "**dog" ]

Edit 2:

I know this is crazy but:

"The special~~ quick brown fox jumps [over the] lazy **dog on** a **Sunday night."
// [ "The special~~", " quick brown fox jumps ", "[over the]", " lazy ", "**dog on**", " a ", "**Sunday night" ]

Answer 1

You may use this regex with more alternations to include your desired matches:

 const re = /\\[[^\\[\\]\\n]*\\]|\\b\\w+\\]|\\[\\w+|\\*\\*.+?(?:\\*\\*|$)|-+|(?:^|~~).+?~~|[\\w ]+/mg; const arr = [ 'The special~~ quick brown fox jumps [over the] lazy **dog on** a **Sunday night.', 'The] quick brown fox jumps [over] the lazy [dog', 'The] quick [brown] fox **jumps** over ~~the~~ lazy dog --- in the [woods' ]; var n; arr.forEach( str => { m = str.match(re); console.log(m); }); 

RegEx Demo

Answer 2

You can use this regex to split the string. It splits the string on text between one of the delimiters ( ** , ~~ or [] ) and either a matching delimiter or the start/end of the string; or on a sequence of hyphens ( - ). It uses a capture group to ensure the string matched by the regex appears in the output array:

((?:\*\*|^)[A-Za-z. ]+(?:\*\*|$)|(?:~~|^)[A-Za-z. ]+(?:~~|$)|(?:\[|^)[A-Za-z. ]+(?:\]|$)|-+

 const re = /((?:\\*\\*|^)[A-Za-z. ]+(?:\\*\\*|$)|(?:~~|^)[A-Za-z. ]+(?:~~|$)|(?:\\[|^)[A-Za-z. ]+(?:\\]|$)|-+)/; const str = [ 'The] quick [brown] fox **jumps** over ~~the~~ lazy dog --- in the [woods', 'The] quick brown fox jumps [over] the lazy [dog', 'The~~ quick brown fox jumps [over] the lazy **dog', 'The special~~ quick brown fox jumps [over the] lazy **dog on** a **Sunday night.']; str.forEach(v => console.log(v.split(re).filter(Boolean))); 

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