How Do I Perform A Javascript Match With A Pattern That Depends On A Variable?

The current implementation of Remy Sharp's jQuery tag suggestion plugin only checks for matches at the beginning of a tag. For example, typing 'Photoshop' will not return a tag nam

Solution 1:

If you want to do regex dynamically in JavaScript, you have to use the RegExp object. I believe your code would look like this (haven't tested, not sure, but right general idea):

for (i = 0; i < tagsToSearch.length; i++) {
    var ctag = jQuery.trim(currentTag.tag);
    var regex = newRegExp(ctag, "i")
    if (tagsToSearch[i].match(regex)) {
        matches.push(tagsToSearch[i]);
    }
}

Solution 2:

Instead of

"/" + ctag + "/i"

Use

newRegExp(ctag, "i")

Solution 3:

You could also continue to use indexOf, just change your === 0 to >= 0:

for (i = 0; i < tagsToSearch.length; i++) {
    if (tagsToSearch[i].toLowerCase().indexOf(jQuery.trim(currentTag.tag.toLowerCase())) >= 0) {
        matches.push(tagsToSearch[i]);
    }
}

But then again, I may be wrong.