[javascript] Javascript Regexp dynamic generation from variables?

How to construct two regex patterns into one?

For example I have one long pattern and one smaller, I need to put smaller one in front of long one.

var pattern1 = ':\(|:=\(|:-\(';
var pattern2 = ':\(|:=\(|:-\(|:\(|:=\(|:-\('
str.match('/'+pattern1+'|'+pattern2+'/gi');

This doesn't work. When I'm concatenating strings, all slashes are gone.

Use the below:

var regEx = new RegExp(pattern1+'|'+pattern2, 'gi');

str.match(regEx);

You have to forgo the regex literal and use the object constructor, where you can pass the regex as a string.

var regex = new RegExp(pattern1+'|'+pattern2, 'gi');
str.match(regex);

The RegExp constructor creates a regular expression object for matching text with a pattern.

    var pattern1 = ':\\(|:=\\(|:-\\(';
    var pattern2 = ':\\(|:=\\(|:-\\(|:\\(|:=\\(|:-\\(';
    var regex = new RegExp(pattern1 + '|' + pattern2, 'gi');
    str.match(regex);

Above code works perfectly for me...