| Overview [](https://travis-ci.org/lydell/js-tokens) | |
| ======== | |
| A regex that tokenizes JavaScript. | |
| ```js | |
| var jsTokens = require("js-tokens").default | |
| var jsString = "var foo=opts.foo;\n..." | |
| jsString.match(jsTokens) | |
| // ["var", " ", "foo", "=", "opts", ".", "foo", ";", "\n", ...] | |
| ``` | |
| Installation | |
| ============ | |
| `npm install js-tokens` | |
| ```js | |
| import jsTokens from "js-tokens" | |
| // or: | |
| var jsTokens = require("js-tokens").default | |
| ``` | |
| Usage | |
| ===== | |
| ### `jsTokens` ### | |
| A regex with the `g` flag that matches JavaScript tokens. | |
| The regex _always_ matches, even invalid JavaScript and the empty string. | |
| The next match is always directly after the previous. | |
| ### `var token = matchToToken(match)` ### | |
| ```js | |
| import {matchToToken} from "js-tokens" | |
| // or: | |
| var matchToToken = require("js-tokens").matchToToken | |
| ``` | |
| Takes a `match` returned by `jsTokens.exec(string)`, and returns a `{type: | |
| String, value: String}` object. The following types are available: | |
| - string | |
| - comment | |
| - regex | |
| - number | |
| - name | |
| - punctuator | |
| - whitespace | |
| - invalid | |
| Multi-line comments and strings also have a `closed` property indicating if the | |
| token was closed or not (see below). | |
| Comments and strings both come in several flavors. To distinguish them, check if | |
| the token starts with `//`, `/*`, `'`, `"` or `` ` ``. | |
| Names are ECMAScript IdentifierNames, that is, including both identifiers and | |
| keywords. You may use [is-keyword-js] to tell them apart. | |
| Whitespace includes both line terminators and other whitespace. | |
| [is-keyword-js]: https://github.com/crissdev/is-keyword-js | |
| ECMAScript support | |
| ================== | |
| The intention is to always support the latest ECMAScript version whose feature | |
| set has been finalized. | |
| If adding support for a newer version requires changes, a new version with a | |
| major verion bump will be released. | |
| Currently, ECMAScript 2018 is supported. | |
| Invalid code handling | |
| ===================== | |
| Unterminated strings are still matched as strings. JavaScript strings cannot | |
| contain (unescaped) newlines, so unterminated strings simply end at the end of | |
| the line. Unterminated template strings can contain unescaped newlines, though, | |
| so they go on to the end of input. | |
| Unterminated multi-line comments are also still matched as comments. They | |
| simply go on to the end of the input. | |
| Unterminated regex literals are likely matched as division and whatever is | |
| inside the regex. | |
| Invalid ASCII characters have their own capturing group. | |
| Invalid non-ASCII characters are treated as names, to simplify the matching of | |
| names (except unicode spaces which are treated as whitespace). Note: See also | |
| the [ES2018](#es2018) section. | |
| Regex literals may contain invalid regex syntax. They are still matched as | |
| regex literals. They may also contain repeated regex flags, to keep the regex | |
| simple. | |
| Strings may contain invalid escape sequences. | |
| Limitations | |
| =========== | |
| Tokenizing JavaScript using regexes—in fact, _one single regex_—won’t be | |
| perfect. But that’s not the point either. | |
| You may compare jsTokens with [esprima] by using `esprima-compare.js`. | |
| See `npm run esprima-compare`! | |
| [esprima]: http://esprima.org/ | |
| ### Template string interpolation ### | |
| Template strings are matched as single tokens, from the starting `` ` `` to the | |
| ending `` ` ``, including interpolations (whose tokens are not matched | |
| individually). | |
| Matching template string interpolations requires recursive balancing of `{` and | |
| `}`—something that JavaScript regexes cannot do. Only one level of nesting is | |
| supported. | |
| ### Division and regex literals collision ### | |
| Consider this example: | |
| ```js | |
| var g = 9.82 | |
| var number = bar / 2/g | |
| var regex = / 2/g | |
| ``` | |
| A human can easily understand that in the `number` line we’re dealing with | |
| division, and in the `regex` line we’re dealing with a regex literal. How come? | |
| Because humans can look at the whole code to put the `/` characters in context. | |
| A JavaScript regex cannot. It only sees forwards. (Well, ES2018 regexes can also | |
| look backwards. See the [ES2018](#es2018) section). | |
| When the `jsTokens` regex scans throught the above, it will see the following | |
| at the end of both the `number` and `regex` rows: | |
| ```js | |
| / 2/g | |
| ``` | |
| It is then impossible to know if that is a regex literal, or part of an | |
| expression dealing with division. | |
| Here is a similar case: | |
| ```js | |
| foo /= 2/g | |
| foo(/= 2/g) | |
| ``` | |
| The first line divides the `foo` variable with `2/g`. The second line calls the | |
| `foo` function with the regex literal `/= 2/g`. Again, since `jsTokens` only | |
| sees forwards, it cannot tell the two cases apart. | |
| There are some cases where we _can_ tell division and regex literals apart, | |
| though. | |
| First off, we have the simple cases where there’s only one slash in the line: | |
| ```js | |
| var foo = 2/g | |
| foo /= 2 | |
| ``` | |
| Regex literals cannot contain newlines, so the above cases are correctly | |
| identified as division. Things are only problematic when there are more than | |
| one non-comment slash in a single line. | |
| Secondly, not every character is a valid regex flag. | |
| ```js | |
| var number = bar / 2/e | |
| ``` | |
| The above example is also correctly identified as division, because `e` is not a | |
| valid regex flag. I initially wanted to future-proof by allowing `[a-zA-Z]*` | |
| (any letter) as flags, but it is not worth it since it increases the amount of | |
| ambigous cases. So only the standard `g`, `m`, `i`, `y` and `u` flags are | |
| allowed. This means that the above example will be identified as division as | |
| long as you don’t rename the `e` variable to some permutation of `gmiyus` 1 to 6 | |
| characters long. | |
| Lastly, we can look _forward_ for information. | |
| - If the token following what looks like a regex literal is not valid after a | |
| regex literal, but is valid in a division expression, then the regex literal | |
| is treated as division instead. For example, a flagless regex cannot be | |
| followed by a string, number or name, but all of those three can be the | |
| denominator of a division. | |
| - Generally, if what looks like a regex literal is followed by an operator, the | |
| regex literal is treated as division instead. This is because regexes are | |
| seldomly used with operators (such as `+`, `*`, `&&` and `==`), but division | |
| could likely be part of such an expression. | |
| Please consult the regex source and the test cases for precise information on | |
| when regex or division is matched (should you need to know). In short, you | |
| could sum it up as: | |
| If the end of a statement looks like a regex literal (even if it isn’t), it | |
| will be treated as one. Otherwise it should work as expected (if you write sane | |
| code). | |
| ### ES2018 ### | |
| ES2018 added some nice regex improvements to the language. | |
| - [Unicode property escapes] should allow telling names and invalid non-ASCII | |
| characters apart without blowing up the regex size. | |
| - [Lookbehind assertions] should allow matching telling division and regex | |
| literals apart in more cases. | |
| - [Named capture groups] might simplify some things. | |
| These things would be nice to do, but are not critical. They probably have to | |
| wait until the oldest maintained Node.js LTS release supports those features. | |
| [Unicode property escapes]: http://2ality.com/2017/07/regexp-unicode-property-escapes.html | |
| [Lookbehind assertions]: http://2ality.com/2017/05/regexp-lookbehind-assertions.html | |
| [Named capture groups]: http://2ality.com/2017/05/regexp-named-capture-groups.html | |
| License | |
| ======= | |
| [MIT](LICENSE). | |