JavaScript - Regex, is there a marker for any string?

Question

str.replace(/\w*(\ || --> A marker whitch can represent any char or string? <-- || )/g, function() {return "(" + arguments[0] + ")"})

Solution 1

The dot (.) matches any (1) character; .+ matches a string of at least length 1, .* matches a string of at least length 0.

Solution 2

A period is used to represent any character that is not a line break, but to represent any character you can use a set with two complementing sets, like all alphanumeric characters and all non-alphanumeric characters:

str = str.replace(/\w*([\W\w])/g, "($1)");

That will match a single character, if you want to match more than one you have to specify how many. [\W\w]{1,3} would for example match one to three characters. [\W\w]+ would match everything to the end of the string.

Note that you don't need a callback for a simple replacement like this, just a string where $1 is substituted with the first caught value.

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Edit:
Come to think of it, as the character is following a set that matches alphanumeric characters, it has to be non-alphanumeric, so just \W will do:

    str = str.replace(/\w*(\W)/g, "($1)");

Comments

[Guffa]

@FreezyIze: When I try it, I get exactly the expected output. Demo: jsfiddle.net/EaJSq/1

[Freezy Ize]

Good answer, but it doesn't search for "any string".

[Freezy Ize]

Please try out the answer above

[Guffa]

@FreezyIze: That does the same, except it doesn't work for all characters. I already covered that in the first sentence of my answer.