Javascript Regex capture group with at least 1 non-digit of two forms: delimited by space and enclosed in quotes

Question

I'm trying to category_id for purely numeric values, this works. I need to also capture category_name. For category_name, I need to capture until space or include space if it started with a double quote.

Sample user input string:

python c:192 c:1Stackoverflow c:"Stack Overflow2"

The desired captures should be these two values for category_name and the 192 for category_id.

Expected output:

1Stackoverflow
Stack Overflow2

The category_name must contain at least one non-digit, but can be all alpha with no digits.

This query partially works:

/c:(?<category_name>(?:")(?!\d+)[^"]+(?:")|(?!\d+)[^ ]+)/g

It doesn't capture the input 1Stackoverflow, but does the quoted one. I need to remove the quotes:

(x.groups?.[key] ?? '').replace(/^\"/, '').replace(/\"$/, '')

The ?!\d+ is an attempt to evade clashing with category_id, but does not appear to be working.

How can I capture category_name in both forms (one word and quote deliminated) without the quotes in the capture and working with a leading digit?

Answer 1

To capture all 3 named groups in one regex use:

c:(?:(?<category_id>\d+\b)|("?)(?<category_name>(?:[^"\s]+|[^"]+))\2)

Updated RegEx Demo

RegEx Breakdown:

• c:: Match c:
• (?:: Start non-capture group
  • (?<category_id>\d+\b): Named capture group category_id to match 1+ digits followed by a word boundary
  • |: OR
  • ("?): Match " or empty string and capture in group #2
  • (?<category_name>[^"\s]+|[^"]+): Named capture group category_name to match 1+ non-whitespace and non-double quote characters or 1+ of any char that is not a double quote
  • \2: Match same text as what we've capture in group #2 which is a " or empty string
• ): End non-capture group

Answer 2

If you want to remove the quotes immediately, I would suggest to use two different named groups for category_name with and without quotes:

c:(?:(?<category_name_q>"[^"]+")|(?<category_name>(?:\d*[a-zA-Z]+)))

(category_name_q contains the previously quoted matches, but without quotes)