regexpu is a source code transpiler that enables the use of ES6 Unicode regular expressions in JavaScript-of-today (ES5). It rewrites regular expressions that make use of the ES6 u
flag into equivalent ES5-compatible regular expressions.
Traceur v0.0.61+, 6to5 v1.5.0+, and esnext v0.12.0+ use regexpu for their u
regexp transpilation. The REPL demos for Traceur, 6to5, and esnext let you try u
regexps as well as other ES.next features.
Consider a file named example-es6.js
with the following contents:
var string = 'foo💩bar';
var match = string.match(/foo(.)bar/u);
console.log(match[1]);
// → '💩'
// This regex matches any symbol from U+1F4A9 to U+1F4AB, and nothing else.
var regex = /[\u{1F4A9}-\u{1F4AB}]/u;
// The following regex is equivalent.
var alternative = /[💩-💫]/u;
console.log([
regex.test('a'), // false
regex.test('💩'), // true
regex.test('💪'), // true
regex.test('💫'), // true
regex.test('💬') // false
]);
Let’s transpile it:
$ regexpu -f example-es6.js > example-es5.js
example-es5.js
can now be used in ES5 environments. Its contents are as follows:
var string = 'foo💩bar';
var match = string.match(/foo((?:[\0-\t\x0B\f\x0E-\u2027\u202A-\uD7FF\uDC00-\uFFFF]|[\uD800-\uDBFF][\uDC00-\uDFFF]|[\uD800-\uDBFF]))bar/);
console.log(match[1]);
// → '💩'
// This regex matches any symbol from U+1F4A9 to U+1F4AB, and nothing else.
var regex = /(?:\uD83D[\uDCA9-\uDCAB])/;
// The following regex is equivalent.
var alternative = /(?:\uD83D[\uDCA9-\uDCAB])/;
console.log([
regex.test('a'), // false
regex.test('💩'), // true
regex.test('💪'), // true
regex.test('💫'), // true
regex.test('💬') // false
]);
- regexpu only transpiles regular expression literals, so things like
RegExp('…', 'u')
are not affected. - regexpu doesn’t polyfill the
RegExp.prototype.unicode
getter because it’s not possible to do so without side effects. - regexpu doesn’t support canonicalizing the contents of back-references in regular expressions with both the
i
andu
flag set, since that would require transpiling/wrapping strings.
To use regexpu programmatically, install it as a dependency via npm:
npm install regexpu --save-dev
To use the command-line interface, install regexpu globally:
npm install regexpu -g
A string representing the semantic version number.
This function takes a string that represents a regular expression pattern as well as a string representing its flags, and returns an ES5-compatible version of the pattern.
regexpu.rewritePattern('foo.bar', 'u');
// → 'foo(?:[\\0-\\t\\x0B\\f\\x0E-\\u2027\\u202A-\\uD7FF\\uDC00-\\uFFFF]|[\\uD800-\\uDBFF][\\uDC00-\\uDFFF]|[\\uD800-\\uDBFF])bar'
regexpu.rewritePattern('[\\u{1D306}-\\u{1D308}a-z]', 'u');
// → '(?:[a-z]|\\uD834[\\uDF06-\\uDF08])'
regexpu.rewritePattern('[\\u{1D306}-\\u{1D308}a-z]', 'ui');
// → '(?:[a-z\\u017F\\u212A]|\\uD834[\\uDF06-\\uDF08])'
regexpu can rewrite non-ES6 regular expressions too, which is useful to demonstrate how their behavior changes once the u
and i
flags are added:
// In ES5, the dot operator only matches BMP symbols:
regexpu.rewritePattern('foo.bar');
// → 'foo(?:[\\0-\\t\\x0B\\f\\x0E-\\u2027\\u202A-\\uFFFF])bar'
// But with the ES6 `u` flag, it matches astral symbols too:
regexpu.rewritePattern('foo.bar', 'u');
// → 'foo(?:[\\0-\\t\\x0B\\f\\x0E-\\u2027\\u202A-\\uD7FF\\uDC00-\\uFFFF]|[\\uD800-\\uDBFF][\\uDC00-\\uDFFF]|[\\uD800-\\uDBFF])bar'
regexpu.rewritePattern
uses regjsgen, regjsparser, and regenerate as internal dependencies. If you only need this function in your program, it’s better to include it directly:
var rewritePattern = require('regexpu/rewrite-pattern');
This prevents the Recast and Esprima dependencies from being loaded into memory.
This function accepts an abstract syntax tree representing some JavaScript code, and returns a transformed version of the tree in which any regular expression literals that use the ES6 u
flag are rewritten in ES5.
var regexpu = require('regexpu');
var recast = require('recast');
var tree = recast.parse(code); // ES6 code
tree = regexpu.transform(tree);
var result = recast.print(tree);
console.log(result.code); // transpiled ES5 code
console.log(result.map); // source map
regexpu.transformTree
uses Recast, regjsgen, regjsparser, and regenerate as internal dependencies. If you only need this function in your program, it’s better to include it directly:
var transformTree = require('regexpu/transform-tree');
This prevents the Esprima dependency from being loaded into memory.
This function accepts a string representing some JavaScript code, and returns a transpiled version of this code tree in which any regular expression literals that use the ES6 u
flag are rewritten in ES5.
var es6 = 'console.log(/foo.bar/u.test("foo💩bar"));';
var es5 = regexpu.transpileCode(es6);
// → 'console.log(/foo(?:[\\0-\\t\\x0B\\f\\x0E-\\u2027\\u202A-\\uD7FF\\uDC00-\\uFFFF]|[\\uD800-\\uDBFF][\\uDC00-\\uDFFF]|[\\uD800-\\uDBFF])bar/.test("foo💩bar"));'
The optional options
object recognizes the following properties:
sourceFileName
: a string representing the file name of the original ES6 source file.sourceMapName
: a string representing the desired file name of the source map.
These properties must be provided if you want to generate source maps.
var result = regexpu.transpileCode(code, {
'sourceFileName': 'es6.js',
'sourceMapName': 'es6.js.map',
});
console.log(result.code); // transpiled source code
console.log(result.map); // source map
regexpu.transpileCode
uses Esprima, Recast, regjsgen, regjsparser, and regenerate as internal dependencies. If you only need this function in your program, feel free to include it directly:
var transpileCode = require('regexpu/transpile-code');
If you’re looking for a general-purpose ES.next-to-ES5 transpiler with support for Unicode regular expressions, consider using one of these:
Mathias Bynens |
regexpu is available under the MIT license.