Matching a word with dot symbol using regexp javascript

Question

I have a search feature. I want to check if the user enter a text word/sentence with dot (.) on it. ``` Example: -anyword.anyword. -. -.anyword ``` Once I detect that he/she entered a value that has a dot on it I will consider that as invalid. I know I can do this using regexp but I'm still in the process of learning it. So anyone could shed me a light here would be appreciated :).

Accepted Answer

You can use `String#indexOf`:

```
if (theString.indexOf(".") !== -1) {
    // It has a dot
}
```

But if you really want to use regular expressions (which would be overkill for just finding a `.`):

```
if (/\./.test(theString)) {
    // It has a dot
}
```

The `/\./` part is the regular expression. The beginning and ending `/` are the regex delimiters, like `"` and `'` are for strings. The content of the regex is `\.` We need the backslash before the `.` because otherwise, within a regex, `.` means "match any character". The backslash before it "escapes" it and tells the regex to literally match a dot. (We don't need that in the `String#indexof` example because `indexOf` doesn't have any special handling of `.`.)

Matching a word with dot symbol using regexp javascript

Solution

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