Is there a RegExp.escape function in JavaScript?

For anyone using Lodash, since v3.0.0 a _.escapeRegExp function is built-in:

_.escapeRegExp('[lodash](https://lodash.com/)');
// → '\[lodash\]\(https:\/\/lodash\.com\/\)'

And, in the event that you don't want to require the full Lodash library, you may require just that function!

The function linked in another answer is insufficient. It fails to escape ^ or $ (start and end of string), or -, which in a character group is used for ranges.

Use this function:

function escapeRegex(string) {
    return string.replace(/[-\/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, '\\$&');
}

While it may seem unnecessary at first glance, escaping - (as well as ^) makes the function suitable for escaping characters to be inserted into a character class as well as the body of the regex.

Escaping / makes the function suitable for escaping characters to be used in a JavaScript regex literal for later evaluation.

As there is no downside to escaping either of them, it makes sense to escape to cover wider use cases.

And yes, it is a disappointing failing that this is not part of standard JavaScript.