UNB/ CS/ David Bremner/ teaching/ cs2613/ books/ mdn/ Reference/ Global Objects/ RegExp/ RegExp.rightContext ($')

Note: All RegExp static properties that expose the last match state globally are deprecated. See deprecated RegExp features for more information.

The RegExp.rightContext static accessor property returns the substring following the most recent match. RegExp["$'"] is an alias for this property.

Description

Because rightContext is a static property of RegExp, you always use it as RegExp.rightContext or RegExp["$'"], rather than as a property of a RegExp object you created.

The value of rightContext updates whenever a RegExp (but not a RegExp subclass) instance makes a successful match. If no matches have been made, rightContext is an empty string. The set accessor of rightContext is undefined, so you cannot change this property directly.

You cannot use the shorthand alias with the dot property accessor (RegExp.$'), because ' is not a valid identifier part, so this causes a SyntaxError. Use the bracket notation instead.

$' can also be used in the replacement string of String.prototype.replace, but that's unrelated to the RegExp["$'"] legacy property.

Examples

Using rightContext and $'

const re = /hello/g;
re.test("hello world!");
RegExp.rightContext; // " world!"
RegExp["$'"]; // " world!"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also