api.URLPattern - Firefox changed the regex engine
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Description
What type of issue is this?
Incorrect support data (example: BrowserX says "86" but support was added in "40")
What information was incorrect, unhelpful, or incomplete?
In Firefox<149, URLPattern uses rust regex, therefore some syntax e.g. look-around will throw:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1998871
This information is not documented.
What browsers does this problem apply to, if applicable?
Firefox
What did you expect to see?
I think the lack of look-around syntax should be documented, or raise the support version from 142 to 149, that Firefox changed the regex engine for better compatibility: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1984171
Otherwise, the example code will throw in Firefox<149.
Did you test this? If so, how?
Here is a jsbin for testing: https://jsbin.com/tocafidoqa/3/edit?js,console
You should see
true
false
true
false
in fully supported browsers.
Can you link to any release notes, bugs, pull requests, or MDN pages related to this?
Do you have anything more you want to share?
No response
MDN URL
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URLPattern
MDN metadata
MDN page report details
- Query:
api.URLPattern - Report started: 2026-02-20T15:21:50.902Z
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start from the api.URLPattern compatibility entry and verify the Firefox behavior against Bugzilla issues 1998871 and 1984171, using the linked JSBin as a check. Done means the browser compatibility data accurately reflects Firefox versions and documents the look-around syntax limitation so the MDN example is not misleading.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- javascript
- Domain
- documentation, web-dev
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 64/100