Regex – get nearest match group from keyword

September 7, 2023

I have an issue with regex, I don’t know how to explain it. but maybe it’s better to use an example here: (fixing my title post are welcomed)

I have this javascript script which looks like this:

...
someFunction(Vo = Co(!0, {
  id: "Shape.c6e2778",
  other_attribute: "4",
  name: "Square"
}), Vo = Co(!0, {
  id: "Shape.3151b12",
  other_attribute: "3",
  name: "Triangle"
}))

What I want to get is the shape id for shape named "Triangle" (the id should be 3151b12)

Right now my regex looks like this:

id:\s+"Shape\.([^"]+)",[\S\s]*?name: "Triangle"

But I get c6e2778 which is the id of Square not Triangle. how do I match shape id that is closest to name: "Triangle" keyword?

Hope this is clear enough.

You can what I did on: https://regexr.com/7jp5j
Thank you

>Solution :

You may use this regex to get you match within a block of {...}:

id:\s*"Shape\.([^"]+)",(?:[^{}\n]*\n)*\s*name:\s*"Triangle"

RegEx DEmo

RegEx Details:

id:: Match text id:
\s0: Match 1+ white spaes
"Shape\.: Match text Shape.
([^"]+): Match 1+ of any characters that are not " and capture in group #1
",: Match text ",
(?:[^{}\n]*\n)*: Match 0 or more of any character that are not {, } and \n followed by a line break. Repeat this group 0 or more times.
\s*name:\s*: Match text name surrounded with optional whitespaces
"Triangle": Match text "Triangle"