Replace text in square brackets

Question

var a = "[i] earned [c] coin for [b] bonus"; 

How to get the string "__ earned __ coins for __ bonus" from the above variable in JavaScript?

All I want to do is replace all the brackets [] and its contents with __ .

Answer 1

 a = a.replace(/\[.*?\]/g, '__'); 

If you expect new lines to appear, you can use:

 a = a.replace(/\[[^\]]*?\]/g, '__'); 

Answer 2

 a = a.replace(/\[[^\]]+\]/g, '__'); 

jsFiddle .

Answer 3

Here's a fun example of matching groups.

 var text = "[i] italic [u] underline [b] bold"; document.body.innerHTML = text.replace(/\[([^\]]+)\]/g, '(<$1>$1</$1>)'); 

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Structure

 / // BEGIN pattern \[ // FIND left bracket (literal) '[' ( // BEGIN capture group 1 [ // BEGIN character class ^ // MATCH start anchor OR \] // MATCH right bracket (literal) ']' ] // END character class + // REPEAT 1 or more ) // END capture group 1 \] // MATCH right bracket (literal) ']' / // END pattern g // FLAG global search