Question

Say we want to know whether a piece of text contains not only a number but a number followed by one of the words pig, cow, or chicken, or any of their plural forms.

We could write three regular expressions and test them in turn, but there is a nicer way. The pipe character ( | ) denotes a choice between the pattern to its left and the pattern to its right. So I can say this:

var animalCount = /\b\d+ (pig|cow|chicken)s?\b/;
console.log(animalCount.test("15 pigs"));
// → true
console.log(animalCount.test("15 pigchickens"));
// → false

Parentheses can be used to limit the part of the pattern that the pipe operator applies to, and you can put multiple such operators next to each other to express a choice between more than two patterns.

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.