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I'm writing a register form which has a ton of javascript included. While writing the basic functions to check the format of certain strings, I came across this problem (I've tried to solve it by myself but no luck there). In this simplified version I have three functions: one to check the format of phone number, second to check the format of email and third to combine those two functions to make it more clear. Here's the code:

<html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <script> function filterPhone(phone){ var pattern = "/^(()?\d{3}())?(-|\s)?\d{3}(-|\s)?\d{4}$/"; return pattern.test(phone); } function filterEmail(email) { var regex = /^([a-zA-Z0-9_.+-])+\@(([a-zA-Z0-9-])+\.)+([a-zA-Z0-9]{2,4})+$/; return regex.test(email); } function checkForm(){ var puh = document.getElementById("puh").value; var email = document.getElementById("email").value; if(filterPhone(puh) && filterEmail(email)){ alert("It works"); return true; } else { alert("Check the format!"); return false; } } </script> </head> <body> <form method="post" action="" name="regForm" onsubmit="return checkForm()"> <input type="text" name="puh" id="puh" placeholder="Phonenumber"><br> <input type="text" name="email" id="email" placeholder="Email address"><br> <input type="submit" value="Check!"> </form> </body> </html> 

If I only use the function filterEmail it works fine but when I use them both (or even only the filterPhone!) it gives me an error: "TypeError: pattern.test is not a function" ("pattern" referring to the first function's (filterPhone) variable name called pattern). I've tried using exec() instead of test() and changing the regex-pattern, neither have worked. This is rather weird since the syntax seems to be correct. Why could be the reason?

4 Answers 4

81

Your pattern must be RegEx literal (double quotes around that should not be there) like this

var pattern = /^(()?\d{3}())?(-|\s)?\d{3}(-|\s)?\d{4}$/; 

Otherwise you need to use RegExp object, with proper escaping for \, like this

var pattern = new RegExp("^(()?\\d{3}())?(-|\\s)?\\d{3}(-|\\s)?\\d{4}$"); 
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2 Comments

RegEx literal (double quotes around that should not be there), that's something new for me. Thanks.
In my case I changed value.test(/*/) to value.match(/*/) and it worked, here's the difference
18

Your pattern holds a string, and not a regular expression.

Make it var pattern = /^(()?\d{3}())?(-|\s)?\d{3}(-|\s)?\d{4}$/; (without quotes)

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6

Encountered a similar issue.

Solution: use .match() instead of .test() method

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4

Also, make sure to write /pattern/.test("string") as opposed to "string".test(/pattern/).

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