javascript string search funcion problem

[Ravinderjit Singh]

Hi,

Why search function is unable to find any match?
Here is my code

var str="anystring (anything).";
var n=str.search("anystring (anything).");
alert(n);

Result is -1

I know that putting the value inside () is causing this problem, but I am not getting why? Can anyone please shed some light on this?


Thanks.

[Keith Wood]

The parentheses are special characters in a regular expression, which is what your search string defines. To use these, and other special characters, as literal values you must escape them with a double backslash:

var str='anystring (anything).'; var n=str.search('anystring \\(anything\\).'); alert(n);

[Ravinderjit Singh]

Thanks for your reply.
I resolved this by replacing special characters before search.