How do you use a variable in a regular expression?

Instead of using the /regex\d/g syntax, you can construct a new RegExp object:

var replace = "regex\\d";
var re = new RegExp(replace,"g");

You can dynamically create regex objects this way. Then you will do:

"mystring1".replace(re, "newstring");

"ABABAB".replace(/B/g, "A");

As always: don't use regex unless you have to. For a simple string replace, the idiom is:

'ABABAB'.split('B').join('A')

Then you don't have to worry about the quoting issues mentioned in Gracenotes's answer.

As Eric Wendelin mentioned, you can do something like this:

str1 = "pattern"
var re = new RegExp(str1, "g");
"pattern matching .".replace(re, "regex");

This yields "regex matching .". However, it will fail if str1 is ".". You'd expect the result to be "pattern matching regex", replacing the period with "regex", but it'll turn out to be...

regexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregexregex

This is because, although "." is a String, in the RegExp constructor it's still interpreted as a regular expression, meaning any non-line-break character, meaning every character in the string. For this purpose, the following function may be useful:

 RegExp.quote = function(str) {
     return str.replace(/([.?*+^$[\]\\(){}|-])/g, "\\$1");
 };

Then you can do:

str1 = "."
var re = new RegExp(RegExp.quote(str1), "g");
"pattern matching .".replace(re, "regex");

yielding "pattern matching regex".