Does regular expression allow you to replace the ending and beginning of a word?

Question

I'm having one heck of a time figuring out regular expression in the context of the grunt-string-replace plugin.

I'm basically trying to take something like this:

!random-cssmixin{}

And turn it into this:

.random-cssmixin;

Is it possible to do this or does regular expression simply allow to you manipulate the text between?

My Gruntfile.js:

'string-replace': {
          dist: {
              expand: true,
              flatten: true,
              src: devRoot + ['/css/*.less'],
              dest: sqsRootCss,
          options: {
              replacements: [{
                   pattern: /\$/g,
                   replacement: "@"
              }, {
                  pattern: "No clue",
                  replacement: "No idea"

              }]
            }
          },
      },

I put the example at the top of the question. I'm writing LESS CSS using the format !random-class{} and the expected output should be .random-class; — jasonbarone, Apr 12 '15 at 23:40
The reason I'm going through this is because I'm using some grunt plugins, one of which is autoprefixing. I'm writing CSS in LESS syntax, but I do NOT want the CSS compiled because my website CMS SaaS platform does this for me. So my output needs to be in uncompiled LESS. The problem is the Autoprefix doesn't understands LESS, so it breaks. To get around this I'm creating my own syntax using supported characters like the example above. — jasonbarone, Apr 12 '15 at 23:42

Federico Piazza · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-12T23:57:59.157

1

You can use a regex like this:

!([\w-]+)\{\}

Working demo

And then use the replacement string:

.\1;

Check the substitution section to see your expected output

enter image description here

edited Apr 12 '15 at 23:57

answered Apr 12 '15 at 23:42

Federico Piazza

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Thanks! Looks like it's doing something, but it's basically wiping out the entire CSS file replacing nearly everything. http://imgur.com/CI4uXpe – jasonbarone Apr 12 '15 at 23:52
Any way to specifically state it as "starting with ! and ending with {}" – jasonbarone Apr 12 '15 at 23:53
@jasonbarone fixed, use the regex `!([\w-]+)\{\}` – Federico Piazza Apr 12 '15 at 23:59
Brilliant thank you! I modified the replacement for grunt-string-replace. pattern: /!([\w-]+)\{\}/g, replacement: '.$1;' – jasonbarone Apr 13 '15 at 00:12

Does regular expression allow you to replace the ending and beginning of a word?

1 Answers1