Regex Lookbehind Not Supported In Safari - How To Achieve The Same?

I am using the following regext (?<=')[^']+(?=')|\w{3,}/g. However I noticed it's not working in safari: https://caniuse.com/js-regexp-lookbehind How can I achieve the same that

Solution 1:

Use capture groups:

functionwords(s) {
    var regex = /"([^"]+)"|(\w{3,})/g;
    var result = [];
    while (true) {
        var match = regex.exec(s);
        if (!match) break;
        result.push(match[match[1] ? 1 : 2]);
    }
    return result;
}
console.log(words('xyz I am in the United States'));
console.log(words('xyz I am "in the United States"'));

The above solution could be done easier with .matchAll and destructuring, but I suppose I shouldn't take the risk to use newer features, since you have no support for look behind.

Alternatively, you can use replace, but actually throw away the main effect of it, and just use the side effect:

functionwords(s) {
    var result = [];
    s.replace(/"([^"]+)"|(\w{3,})/g, (_, quoted, word) => 
        result.push(quoted || word)
    );
    return result;
}
console.log(words('xyz I am in the United States'));
console.log(words('xyz I am "in the United States"'));