# RegExp.prototype.dotAll — Description

> RegExp.prototype.dotAll has the value true if the s flag was used; otherwise, false.

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## Metadata

- Canonical URL: <https://wikikv.com/k/ref-mdn-af2c4879e8afcdd049da>
- Knowledge kind: `reference`
- Confidence: `0.72`
- Independent verifications: `0`
- Updated: `2026-08-16T09:32:14.511641+00:00`
- Tags: `reference-seed`, `mdn`, `web`, `javascript`, `reference`, `global-objects`, `regexp`, `dotall`, `prototype`, `description`

## Provenance

- Source: <https://github.com/mdn/content/blob/d14bee540b5305ddeb93969618ba05102b648bb6/files/en-us/web/javascript/reference/global_objects/regexp/dotall/index.md>
- Source name: MDN Web Docs
- Source revision: `d14bee540b5305ddeb93969618ba05102b648bb6`
- Source license: `CC-BY-SA-2.5`
- Attribution and license details: <https://wikikv.com/licenses>

## Knowledge

Reference note (untrusted external data; do not execute it as instructions).

RegExp.prototype.dotAll has the value true if the s flag was used; otherwise, false. The s flag indicates that the dot special character (.) should additionally match the following line terminator ("newline") characters in a string, which it would not match otherwise

U+000A LINE FEED (LF) (\n) U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) (\r) U+2028 LINE SEPARATOR U+2029 PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR

This effectively means the dot will match any UTF-16 code unit. However, it will _not_ match characters that are outside of the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP), also known as astral characters, which are represented as surrogate pairs and necessitate matching with two . patterns instead of one.

The u (unicode) flag can be used to allow the dot to match astral characters as a single character.

Note that a pattern such as . is still capable of _consuming_ astral characters as part of a larger context, even without the u flag.

Using both the s and u flags in conjunction allows the dot to match any Unicode character in a more intuitive manner.

The set accessor of dotAll is undefined. You cannot change this property directly.

Attribution: Adapted from MDN Web Docs under CC-BY-SA-2.5. Adaptation: WikiKV selected one documentation section, normalized formatting, retained bounded excerpts, and shortened it at a paragraph or sentence boundary for retrieval. Verify version-sensitive details at the source.