The $ symbol is one of the most commonly used symbols in RegEx. It is used to match the end of a string. In other words, you can call it "end of line anchor", since it anchors a pattern to the end of the line.

In this article, I’ll show you exactly what the dollar sign ($) does in RegEx and how to use it.

What We'll Cover

What is the $ Symbol in RegEx?

The $ is one of the RegEx characters known as metacharacters. It matches the end of a string and would only return a match when the text or string it is attached to is at the end of a line.

This is useful in cases where you want to ensure that a string ends with a certain pattern or character. You can use the $ metacharacter with other metacharacters to create complex patterns that match specific strings or patterns within strings.

In the example below, you can see that the pattern is freecodecamp$ with the i, g, and m flags. i means case insensitive, g means global, and m means multiline. Screenshot-2023-04-19-at-10.46.29

You can also see that only the word freeCoceCamp at the end of a line is returned as matches. That’s the power of the $ metacharacter.

How to Match the Dollar Sign $ in RegEx

Since the dollar sign $ is a metacharacter, how would you match it in a string? You have to escape it with a backslash! That’s how you match all metacharacters in RegEx. Screenshot-2023-04-19-at-10.46.37

How to Use the Dollar Sign $ in a JavaScript Regex

The dollar sign $ metacharacter works fine in JavaScript. In the code snippet below, I test the dollar sign as a metacharacter and as a string:

const text1 =
  "At freeCodeCamp, we don't ask you to pay to learn coding, because freeCodeCamp is a charity";

const text2 =
  'You can also hang out with friends on a forum developed by freeCodeCamp';

const text3 = 'The sign of the naira is ₦ and dollar sign is $.';

const regex1 = /freecodecamp$/gim;
const regex2 = /\$/g;

// test the dollar sign as a metacharacter
console.log(regex1.test(text1)); //false
console.log(regex2.test(text2)); //true

// test the dollar sign as a string
console.log(regex2.test(text3)); //true

You can see that when I tested the string At freeCodeCamp, we don't ask you to pay to learn coding, because freeCodeCamp is a charity with the regex /freecodecamp$/gim;, it returned false because there’s no freeCodeCamp at the end of a line. But when I tested You can also hang out with friends on a forum developed by freeCodeCamp' with the same regex, it returned true because there’s a freeCodeCamp at the end of a line.

Also, you can see that the string 'The sign of the naira is ₦ and dollar sign is $.' returned true when I tested it with the regex /\$/g.

You can also use the exec() method instead of test() to see the exact matches of your regex:

const text1 =
  "At freeCodeCamp, we don't ask you to pay to learn coding, because freeCodeCamp is a charity";

const text2 =
  'You can also hang out with friends on a forum developed by freeCodeCamp';

const text3 = 'The sign of the naira is ₦ and dollar sign is $.';

const regex1 = /freecodecamp$/gim;
const regex2 = /\$/g;

// test the dollar sign as a metacharacter
console.log(regex1.exec(text1));
console.log(regex1.exec(text2));

// test the dollar sign as a string
console.log(regex2.exec(text3));

Output:

null
[
  'freeCodeCamp',
  index: 59,
  input: 'You can also hang out with friends on a forum developed by freeCodeCamp',
  groups: undefined
]
[
  '$',
  index: 46,
  input: 'The sign of the naira is ₦ and dollar sign is $.',
  groups: undefined
]

The first console log returned null because there was no match. The second returned the match, and the third returned the match too.

Conclusion

You’ve seen how the dollar ($) metacharacter matches the end of a line in RegEx and in JavaScript.

You can combine the dollar metacharacter with several other metacharacters to create a complex pattern. For instance, since caret (^) matches the start of a line, you can combine it with the dollar metacharacter to match a particular word only.

Happy coding!