How to split a long regular expression into multiple lines in JavaScript?

[Edit 2022/08] Created a small github repository to create regular expressions with spaces, comments and templating.

You could convert it to a string and create the expression by calling new RegExp():

var myRE = new RegExp (['^(([^<>()[\]\\.,;:\\s@\"]+(\\.[^<>(),[\]\\.,;:\\s@\"]+)*)',
                        '|(\\".+\\"))@((\\[[0-9]{1,3}\\.[0-9]{1,3}\\.[0-9]{1,3}\\.',
                        '[0-9]{1,3}\])|(([a-zA-Z\-0-9]+\\.)+',
                        '[a-zA-Z]{2,}))$'].join(''));

Notes:

1. when converting the expression literal to a string you need to escape all backslashes as backslashes are consumed when evaluating a string literal. (See Kayo's comment for more detail.)

2. RegExp accepts modifiers as a second parameter

   /regex/g => new RegExp('regex', 'g')

[Addition ES20xx (tagged template)]

In ES20xx you can use tagged templates. See the snippet.

Note:

• Disadvantage here is that you can't use plain whitespace in the regular expression string (always use \s, \s+, \s{1,x}, \t, \n etc).

(() => {
  const createRegExp = (str, opts) => 
    new RegExp(str.raw[0].replace(/\s/gm, ""), opts || "");
  const yourRE = createRegExp`
    ^(([^<>()[\]\\.,;:\s@\"]+(\.[^<>()[\]\\.,;:\s@\"]+)*)|
    (\".+\"))@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\])|
    (([a-zA-Z\-0-9]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,}))$`;
  console.log(yourRE);
  const anotherLongRE = createRegExp`
    (\byyyy\b)|(\bm\b)|(\bd\b)|(\bh\b)|(\bmi\b)|(\bs\b)|(\bms\b)|
    (\bwd\b)|(\bmm\b)|(\bdd\b)|(\bhh\b)|(\bMI\b)|(\bS\b)|(\bMS\b)|
    (\bM\b)|(\bMM\b)|(\bdow\b)|(\bDOW\b)
    ${"gi"}`;
  console.log(anotherLongRE);
})();

Extending @KooiInc answer, you can avoid manually escaping every special character by using the source property of the RegExp object.

Example:

var urlRegex= new RegExp(''
  + /(?:(?:(https?|ftp):)?\/\/)/.source     // protocol
  + /(?:([^:\n\r]+):([^@\n\r]+)@)?/.source  // user:pass
  + /(?:(?:www\.)?([^\/\n\r]+))/.source     // domain
  + /(\/[^?\n\r]+)?/.source                 // request
  + /(\?[^#\n\r]*)?/.source                 // query
  + /(#?[^\n\r]*)?/.source                  // anchor
);

or if you want to avoid repeating the .source property you can do it using the Array.map() function:

var urlRegex= new RegExp([
  /(?:(?:(https?|ftp):)?\/\/)/      // protocol
  ,/(?:([^:\n\r]+):([^@\n\r]+)@)?/  // user:pass
  ,/(?:(?:www\.)?([^\/\n\r]+))/     // domain
  ,/(\/[^?\n\r]+)?/                 // request
  ,/(\?[^#\n\r]*)?/                 // query
  ,/(#?[^\n\r]*)?/                  // anchor
].map(function(r) {return r.source}).join(''));

In ES6 the map function can be reduced to: .map(r => r.source)