BetterTTV — Using regular expressions in Highlight & Blacklist Keywords

betterttv-regex-keywords.md

Using Regular Expressions in BetterTTV Keywords

BetterTTV's Highlight Keywords and Blacklist Keywords support full regular expressions, in addition to plain words and phrases. This lets you match flexible patterns instead of a single fixed word.

Syntax

Wrap your pattern in ~/ and /, with optional flags after the closing slash:

~/pattern/flags

This is the same style as a JavaScript regular expression literal.

Examples

Entry	Matches
~/(cat|dog)s?/i	cat, Cat, dogs, DOGS, ...
~/\bgg\b/i	the standalone word "gg" (not "eggs")
~/!(give|raffle)/i	!give or !raffle commands
~/[A-Z]{5,}/	shouting (5+ uppercase letters in a row)

Flags

Standard JavaScript regex flags work, for example:

• i — case-insensitive
• g — global
• u — unicode

Where it works

Regex applies to every Target type in the keyword tables:

• Message — tested against the message text
• Username — tested against the sender's name
• Badge — tested against the user's badges

Both the Highlight Keywords and Blacklist Keywords tables support it.

Notes

• Patterns are validated for safety. Expressions that could cause catastrophic backtracking are ignored, so a "bad" pattern simply won't match anything rather than freezing your chat.
• If a pattern isn't wrapped in ~/ /, it is treated as a normal word/phrase match (with BetterTTV's usual wildcard and exact-match rules).
• Remember to escape regex special characters when you want them matched literally.