Regex Grouping Stepped Explanation

Question

let quotedText = /'([^']*)'/;
console.log(quotedText.exec("she said 'hello'"));
//["'hello'", "hello"]

why does hello appear twice?

Answer 1

The first element in the result is the full match, and the second element is the first captured group. Remove the parentheses () to get only one result.

let quotedText = /'[^']*'/;
console.log(quotedText.exec("she said 'hello'"));

If you still want to keep the parentheses, you can use a non-capturing group as shown below:

let quotedText = /'(?:[^']*)'/;
console.log(quotedText.exec("she said 'hello'"));