Searching for (any) strings in another string separated by non-alphanumeric characters

Question

How can I extract words (which can be anything) out of a string which are separated by non-alphabetic characters (digits or symbols) and save the result in an array.

For example if I parsed the following I would like to have the name of the three fruits in an array.

var input str = '= ((1 * bananas ^ 5) - oranges / mangos)'  // to get [bananas, oranges, mangos]

The practical application of this is that, I would like to extract variable names from a mathematical formula, after which I can assign values to them (which I'd get from some object or array)

Sorry that was a typo, it's getting late here. Yes I meant all variables. See updates above. — Crocodile, Feb 28 '15 at 01:09
`1` and `5` are alphanumeric, why aren't they in the results? — Barmar, Feb 28 '15 at 01:14

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 28 '15 at 01:11

1

You can match [a-z]+:

'= ((1 * bananas ^ 5) - oranges / mangos)'.match(/[a-z]+/ig)

answered Feb 28 '15 at 01:11

Oriol

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Searching for (any) strings in another string separated by non-alphanumeric characters

1 Answers1