tessl/npm-xregexp

Extended regular expressions with augmented syntax, named capture groups, Unicode support, and cross-browser compatibility

Overview

Eval results

Files

Unicode Support

Name: tessl/npm-xregexp
Author: tessl

Comprehensive Unicode property, category, and script matching with astral plane support for international text processing.

Capabilities

Unicode Token Syntax

XRegExp supports Unicode property matching via \\p{} and \\P{} tokens.

// Unicode token patterns:
// \\p{PropertyName}     - Match Unicode property
// \\P{PropertyName}     - Match NOT Unicode property (negated)
// \\p{^PropertyName}    - Match NOT Unicode property (caret negation)
// \\pL                  - Single letter shorthand for \\p{Letter}
// \\p{Type=Value}       - Match specific property type and value

Usage Examples:

// Basic Unicode property matching
const letters = XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}+', 'A');
letters.test('Hello世界'); // true - matches Unicode letters

// Negated properties
const nonDigits = XRegExp('\\\\P{Number}+', 'A');  
nonDigits.test('abc'); // true - matches non-numeric characters

// Single letter shortcuts
const identifiers = XRegExp('\\\\pL[\\\\pL\\\\pN]*', 'A');
identifiers.test('變數名123'); // true - letter followed by letters/numbers

// Category matching
const punctuation = XRegExp('\\\\p{Punctuation}', 'A');
punctuation.test('!'); // true
punctuation.test('。'); // true - Unicode punctuation

Unicode Data Management

Add custom Unicode character data for specialized matching.

/**
 * Adds to the list of Unicode tokens that XRegExp regexes can match
 * @param data - Array of objects with named character ranges
 * @param typePrefix - Optional type prefix for all provided Unicode tokens
 */
function addUnicodeData(data: UnicodeCharacterRange[], typePrefix?: string): void;

interface UnicodeCharacterRange {
  /** The name of the character range */
  name: string;
  /** An alternate name for the character range */
  alias?: string;
  /** Needed when token matches orphan high surrogates and uses surrogate pairs */
  isBmpLast?: boolean;
  /** Can be used to avoid duplicating data by referencing inverse of another token */
  inverseOf?: string;
  /** Character data for Basic Multilingual Plane (U+0000-U+FFFF) */
  bmp?: string;
  /** Character data for astral code points (U+10000-U+10FFFF) */
  astral?: string;
}

Usage Examples:

// Add custom Unicode token
XRegExp.addUnicodeData([{
  name: 'XDigit',
  alias: 'Hexadecimal', 
  bmp: '0-9A-Fa-f'
}]);

// Use the custom token
XRegExp('\\\\p{XDigit}:\\\\p{Hexadecimal}+').test('0:3D'); // true

// Add token with type prefix
XRegExp.addUnicodeData([{
  name: 'Emoji',
  bmp: '\\u{1F600}-\\u{1F64F}',
  astral: '\\u{1F300}-\\u{1F5FF}|\\u{1F680}-\\u{1F6FF}'
}], 'Custom');

// Use with type prefix
XRegExp('\\\\p{Custom=Emoji}').test('😀'); // true (with flag A)

Built-in Unicode Categories

XRegExp includes comprehensive Unicode general categories:

Letter Categories

// All letters
XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}', 'A').test('A');    // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}', 'A').test('文');   // true  
XRegExp('\\\\p{L}', 'A').test('π');        // true (shorthand)

// Specific letter subcategories
XRegExp('\\\\p{Uppercase_Letter}', 'A').test('A');  // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Lu}', 'A').test('A');               // true (shorthand)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Lowercase_Letter}', 'A').test('a');  // true  
XRegExp('\\\\p{Ll}', 'A').test('a');               // true (shorthand)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Titlecase_Letter}', 'A').test('Dž'); // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Lt}', 'A').test('Dž');              // true (shorthand)

Number Categories

// All numbers
XRegExp('\\\\p{Number}', 'A').test('5');    // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Number}', 'A').test('Ⅴ');   // true (Roman numeral)
XRegExp('\\\\p{N}', 'A').test('½');        // true (shorthand)

// Specific number subcategories
XRegExp('\\\\p{Decimal_Number}', 'A').test('9');   // true  
XRegExp('\\\\p{Nd}', 'A').test('9');              // true (shorthand)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter_Number}', 'A').test('Ⅴ');   // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Nl}', 'A').test('Ⅴ');              // true (shorthand)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Other_Number}', 'A').test('½');     // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{No}', 'A').test('½');              // true (shorthand)

Mark Categories

// All marks (combining characters)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Mark}', 'A').test('́');      // true (combining acute)
XRegExp('\\\\p{M}', 'A').test('̃');         // true (shorthand)

// Specific mark subcategories
XRegExp('\\\\p{Nonspacing_Mark}', 'A').test('́');  // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Mn}', 'A').test('́');              // true (shorthand)

Punctuation Categories

// All punctuation
XRegExp('\\\\p{Punctuation}', 'A').test('!');  // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Punctuation}', 'A').test('。'); // true (CJK period)
XRegExp('\\\\p{P}', 'A').test('?');           // true (shorthand)

// Specific punctuation subcategories  
XRegExp('\\\\p{Open_Punctuation}', 'A').test('(');  // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Ps}', 'A').test('[');               // true (shorthand)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Close_Punctuation}', 'A').test(')'); // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Pe}', 'A').test(']');               // true (shorthand)

Built-in Unicode Scripts

XRegExp supports Unicode script matching:

// Latin script
XRegExp('\\\\p{Latin}', 'A').test('Hello');     // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Script=Latin}', 'A').test('A');  // true (explicit syntax)

// Chinese/Japanese/Korean scripts
XRegExp('\\\\p{Han}', 'A').test('漢字');        // true (Chinese characters)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Hiragana}', 'A').test('ひらがな'); // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Katakana}', 'A').test('カタカナ');  // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Hangul}', 'A').test('한글');      // true (Korean)

// Arabic and Hebrew
XRegExp('\\\\p{Arabic}', 'A').test('العربية');  // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Hebrew}', 'A').test('עברית');    // true

// Cyrillic  
XRegExp('\\\\p{Cyrillic}', 'A').test('Кирилица'); // true

// Greek
XRegExp('\\\\p{Greek}', 'A').test('Ελληνικά');   // true

Built-in Unicode Properties

XRegExp includes Unicode properties for specialized matching:

// Alphabetic property (broader than Letter category)
XRegExp('\\\\p{Alphabetic}', 'A').test('A');    // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Alpha}', 'A').test('文');        // true

// Whitespace property
XRegExp('\\\\p{White_Space}', 'A').test(' ');   // true  
XRegExp('\\\\p{Space}', 'A').test('\\t');       // true

// Uppercase and Lowercase properties
XRegExp('\\\\p{Uppercase}', 'A').test('A');     // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Lowercase}', 'A').test('a');     // true

// Math property
XRegExp('\\\\p{Math}', 'A').test('+');         // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Math}', 'A').test('∑');         // true (summation)

// Currency symbol property
XRegExp('\\\\p{Currency_Symbol}', 'A').test('$'); // true
XRegExp('\\\\p{Sc}', 'A').test('€');             // true (shorthand)

Astral Unicode Support

Flag A enables 21-bit Unicode support for characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane:

Astral Flag Usage

// Flag A enables astral mode for Unicode tokens
// Required for code points above U+FFFF (outside BMP)
// Automatically added when XRegExp.install('astral') is called

Usage Examples:

// Without flag A - only BMP characters (U+0000-U+FFFF)
const bmpOnly = XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}');
bmpOnly.test('A');    // true
bmpOnly.test('文');  // true  
bmpOnly.test('𝒜');   // false (mathematical script capital A, U+1D49C)

// With flag A - full Unicode range (U+0000-U+10FFFF)  
const fullUnicode = XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}', 'A');
fullUnicode.test('A');    // true
fullUnicode.test('文');  // true
fullUnicode.test('𝒜');   // true (now works with astral support)

// Astral emoji support
const emoji = XRegExp('\\\\p{Emoji}', 'A');
emoji.test('😀');  // true (U+1F600)
emoji.test('🚀'); // true (U+1F680)

Global Astral Mode

Enable astral mode for all new regexes:

// Enable astral mode globally
XRegExp.install('astral');

// Now flag A is automatically added to all XRegExp regexes
const auto = XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}'); // Automatically gets flag A
auto.test('𝒜'); // true

// Disable astral mode
XRegExp.uninstall('astral');

Unicode Code Point Escapes

XRegExp supports extended Unicode escape syntax:

// \\u{N...} - Unicode code point escape with curly braces
// N... is any one or more digit hexadecimal number from 0-10FFFF
// Can include leading zeros
// Requires flag u for code points > U+FFFF

Usage Examples:

// Basic Multilingual Plane characters
XRegExp('\\\\u{41}').test('A');        // true (U+0041)
XRegExp('\\\\u{3042}').test('あ');     // true (U+3042, Hiragana A)

// Astral characters (requires flag u)
XRegExp('\\\\u{1F600}', 'u').test('😀'); // true (U+1F600, grinning face)
XRegExp('\\\\u{1D49C}', 'u').test('𝒜');  // true (U+1D49C, math script A)

// Leading zeros allowed
XRegExp('\\\\u{0041}').test('A');       // true (same as \\u{41})
XRegExp('\\\\u{00003042}').test('あ');  // true (same as \\u{3042})

Pattern Examples

International Identifiers

// Match programming identifiers with Unicode support
const identifier = XRegExp('^\\\\p{ID_Start}\\\\p{ID_Continue}*$', 'A');
identifier.test('변수명');     // true (Korean)
identifier.test('переменная'); // true (Russian)  
identifier.test('変数名');     // true (Japanese)
identifier.test('متغير');     // true (Arabic)

Multi-script Text Processing

// Extract words from mixed-script text
const words = XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}+', 'gA');
const text = 'Hello 世界 مرحبا мир';
const matches = XRegExp.match(text, words, 'all');
// Result: ['Hello', '世界', 'مرحبا', 'мир']

Unicode-aware Whitespace

// Match all Unicode whitespace characters
const whitespace = XRegExp('\\\\p{White_Space}+', 'gA');
const text = 'word1\\u2003word2\\u2009word3'; // em space and thin space
XRegExp.split(text, whitespace);
// Result: ['word1', 'word2', 'word3']

Diacritic Handling

// Match base letters with any combining marks
const withDiacritics = XRegExp('\\\\p{Letter}\\\\p{Mark}*', 'gA');
const text = 'café naïve résumé';
XRegExp.match(text, withDiacritics, 'all');
// Result: ['café', 'naïve', 'résumé'] (preserves combining characters)

Install with Tessl CLI