i need a regex pattern for name field in which i want to allow character a-z, A-Z and ' - and white space. i am currently using this code but it is giving an error.
final String regexpattern = "/[a-zA-Z\s-']*/";
You have to add another \ before \s, and add ^ and $ for match begin and end.
final String regexpattern = "/^[a-zA-Z\\s'-]*$/";
Your regex (when it is no longer malformed - see below how to fix that) will always match because you do not use anchors (^ - start of string, and $ - end of string) and use a * quantifier (match 1 or more symbols matching the preceding subpattern, as many as possible).
However, just adding ^ and $ will not fix the pattern, because you are using 1 backslash with \s inside a C string (i.e. inside a string literal "..."). The backslash is treated as an escape symbol and is not taken into account as "\s" is an invalid escape sequence. Inside a character class in regex (i.e. in [...]), a hyphen creates a range. Your s-' creates a range from s (dec. code 115) to ' (dec. code 39). Since in a range inside a character class the codes must go from the lowest to the highest, an error is thrown.
You may just use
final String regexpattern = "/^[a-zA-Z\\s-']*$/";
It is possible because the hyphen after a shorthand class \s does not create a range and is considered a literal. As best practice, you can move it to the end of the character class as xdazz did.
As for your additional question in comment:
i have to allow the all characters excluding ^<>%*()#!?
Just use a negated character class: a pair of square brackets with a starting ^ inside it:
final String regexpattern = "/^[^<>%*()#!^?]*$/";
1 2 3
Here, the first ^ is the start-of-string anchor, and the second caret is the negation of the characters inside the character class. The third caret is a literal symbol ^.
Related
I need a regular expression able to match everything but a string starting with a specific pattern (specifically index.php and what follows, like index.php?id=2342343).
Regex: match everything but:
a string starting with a specific pattern (e.g. any - empty, too - string not starting with foo):
Lookahead-based solution for NFAs:
^(?!foo).*$
^(?!foo)
Negated character class based solution for regex engines not supporting lookarounds:
^(([^f].{2}|.[^o].|.{2}[^o]).*|.{0,2})$
^([^f].{2}|.[^o].|.{2}[^o])|^.{0,2}$
a string ending with a specific pattern (say, no world. at the end):
Lookbehind-based solution:
(?<!world\.)$
^.*(?<!world\.)$
Lookahead solution:
^(?!.*world\.$).*
^(?!.*world\.$)
POSIX workaround:
^(.*([^w].{5}|.[^o].{4}|.{2}[^r].{3}|.{3}[^l].{2}|.{4}[^d].|.{5}[^.])|.{0,5})$
([^w].{5}|.[^o].{4}|.{2}[^r].{3}|.{3}[^l].{2}|.{4}[^d].|.{5}[^.]$|^.{0,5})$
a string containing specific text (say, not match a string having foo):
Lookaround-based solution:
^(?!.*foo)
^(?!.*foo).*$
POSIX workaround:
Use the online regex generator at www.formauri.es/personal/pgimeno/misc/non-match-regex
a string containing specific character (say, avoid matching a string having a | symbol):
^[^|]*$
a string equal to some string (say, not equal to foo):
Lookaround-based:
^(?!foo$)
^(?!foo$).*$
POSIX:
^(.{0,2}|.{4,}|[^f]..|.[^o].|..[^o])$
a sequence of characters:
PCRE (match any text but cat): /cat(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|[^c]*(?:c(?!at)[^c]*)*/i or /cat(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|(?:(?!cat).)+/is
Other engines allowing lookarounds: (cat)|[^c]*(?:c(?!at)[^c]*)* (or (?s)(cat)|(?:(?!cat).)*, or (cat)|[^c]+(?:c(?!at)[^c]*)*|(?:c(?!at)[^c]*)+[^c]*) and then check with language means: if Group 1 matched, it is not what we need, else, grab the match value if not empty
a certain single character or a set of characters:
Use a negated character class: [^a-z]+ (any char other than a lowercase ASCII letter)
Matching any char(s) but |: [^|]+
Demo note: the newline \n is used inside negated character classes in demos to avoid match overflow to the neighboring line(s). They are not necessary when testing individual strings.
Anchor note: In many languages, use \A to define the unambiguous start of string, and \z (in Python, it is \Z, in JavaScript, $ is OK) to define the very end of the string.
Dot note: In many flavors (but not POSIX, TRE, TCL), . matches any char but a newline char. Make sure you use a corresponding DOTALL modifier (/s in PCRE/Boost/.NET/Python/Java and /m in Ruby) for the . to match any char including a newline.
Backslash note: In languages where you have to declare patterns with C strings allowing escape sequences (like \n for a newline), you need to double the backslashes escaping special characters so that the engine could treat them as literal characters (e.g. in Java, world\. will be declared as "world\\.", or use a character class: "world[.]"). Use raw string literals (Python r'\bworld\b'), C# verbatim string literals #"world\.", or slashy strings/regex literal notations like /world\./.
You could use a negative lookahead from the start, e.g., ^(?!foo).*$ shouldn't match anything starting with foo.
You can put a ^ in the beginning of a character set to match anything but those characters.
[^=]*
will match everything but =
Just match /^index\.php/, and then reject whatever matches it.
In Python:
>>> import re
>>> p='^(?!index\.php\?[0-9]+).*$'
>>> s1='index.php?12345'
>>> re.match(p,s1)
>>> s2='index.html?12345'
>>> re.match(p,s2)
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0xb7d65fa8>
Came across this thread after a long search. I had this problem for multiple searches and replace of some occurrences. But the pattern I used was matching till the end. Example below
import re
text = "start![image]xxx(xx.png) yyy xx![image]xxx(xxx.png) end"
replaced_text = re.sub(r'!\[image\](.*)\(.*\.png\)', '*', text)
print(replaced_text)
gave
start* end
Basically, the regex was matching from the first ![image] to the last .png, swallowing the middle yyy
Used the method posted above https://stackoverflow.com/a/17761124/429476 by Firish to break the match between the occurrence. Here the space is not matched; as the words are separated by space.
replaced_text = re.sub(r'!\[image\]([^ ]*)\([^ ]*\.png\)', '*', text)
and got what I wanted
start* yyy xx* end
This seems a very simple question but I haven't been able to get this to work.
How do I convert the following string:
var origin_str = "abc/!/!"; // Original string
var modified_str = "abc!!"; // replaced string
I tried this:
console.log(origin_str.replace(/\\/,''));
This only removes the first occurrence of backslash. I want to replaceAll. I followed this instruction in SO: How to replace all occurrences of a string in JavaScript?
origin_str.replace(new RegExp('\\', 'g'), '');
This code throws me an error SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: /\/: \ at end of pattern. What's the regex for removing backslash in javascript.
A quick basic overview of regular expressions in JavaScript
When using regular expressions you can define the expression on two ways.
Either directly in the function or variable by using /regular expression/
Or by using the regExp contructor: new RegExp('regular expression').
Please note the difference between the two ways of defining. In the first the search pattern is encapsuled by forward slashes, while in the second one the search pattern is passed as a string.
Remember that regular expressions is in fact a search language with it's own syntax. Some characters are used to define actions: /, \, ^, $, . (dot), |, ?, *, +, (, ), [, {, ', ". These characters are called metacharacters and need to be escaped if you want them to be part of the search pattern. If not they will be treated as an option or generate script errors. Escaping is done by using the backslash. E.g. \\ escapes the second backslash and the search pattern will now search for backslashes.
There are a multitude of options you can add to your search pattern.:
Examples
adding \d will make the pattern search for a numeric value between [0-9] and/or the underscore. Simple regular expressions are parsed from left to right.
/javascript/
Searches for the word javascript in a string.
/[a-z]/
When a pattern is put between square bracket the search pattern searches for a character matching any one of the values inside the square brackets. This will find d in 229302d34330
You can build a regular expression with multiple blocks.
/(java)|(emca)script/
Find javascript or emcascript in a string. The | is the or operator.
/a/ vs. /a+/
The first matches the first a in aaabbb, the second matches a repetition of a until another character is found. So the second matches: aaa.
The plus sign + means find a one or more times. You can also use * which means zero or more times.
/^\d+$/
We've seen the \d earlier and also the plus sign. This means find one or more numeric characters. The ^ (caret) and $ (dollar sign) are new. The ^ says start searching from the begin of the string, while the $ says until the end of the string. This expression will match: 574545485 but not d43849343, 549854fff or 4348d8788.
Flags
Flags are operators and are declared after the regular expression /regular expression/flags
JavaScript has three flags you can use:
g (global) Searches multiples times for the pattern.
i (ignore case) Ignores case in pattern.
m (multiline) treat beginning and end characters (^ and $) as working over multiple lines (i.e., match the beginning or end of each line (delimited by \n or \r), not only the very beginning or end of the whole input string)
So a regular expression like this:
/d[0-9]+/ig
matches D094938 and D344783 in 98498D094938A37834D344783.
The i makes the search case-insensitive. Matching a D because of the d in the pattern. If D is followed by one or more numbers then the pattern is matched. The g flag commands the expression to look for the pattern globally or simply said: multiple times.
In your case #Qwerty provided the correct regex:
origin_str.replace(/\//g, "")
Where the search pattern is a single forward slash /. Escaped by the backslash to prevent script errors. The g flags commands the replace function to search for all occurrences of the forward slash in the string and replace them with an empty string "".
For a comprehensive tutorial and reference : http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html
Looking for this?
origin_str.replace(/\//g, "")
The syntax for replace is
.replace(/pattern/flags, replacement)
So in my case the pattern is \/ - an escaped slash
and g is global flag.
I have a regular expression in JavaScript to allow numeric and (,.+() -) character in phone field
my regex is [0-9-,.+() ]
It works for numeric as well as above six characters but it also allows characters like % and $ which are not in above list.
Even though you don't have to, I always make it a point to escape metacharacters (easier to read and less pain):
[0-9\-,\.+\(\) ]
But this won't work like you expect it to because it will only match one valid character while allowing other invalid ones in the string. I imagine you want to match the entire string with at least one valid character:
^[0-9\-,\.\+\(\) ]+$
Your original regex is not actually matching %. What it is doing is matching valid characters, but the problem is that it only matches one of them. So if you had the string 435%, it matches the 4, and so the regex reports that it has a match.
If you try to match it against just one invalid character, it won't match. So your original regex doesn't match the string %:
> /[0-9\-,\.\+\(\) ]/.test("%")
false
> /[0-9\-,\.\+\(\) ]/.test("44%5")
true
> "444%6".match(/[0-9\-,\.+\(\) ]/)
["4"] //notice that the 4 was matched.
Going back to the point about escaping, I find that it is easier to escape it rather than worrying about the different rules where specific metacharacters are valid in a character class. For example, - is only valid in the following cases:
When used in an actual character class with proper-order such as [a-z] (but not [z-a])
When used as the first or last character, or by itself, so [-a], [a-], or [-].
When used after a range like [0-9-,] or [a-d-j] (but keep in mind that [9-,] is invalid and [a-d-j] does not match the letters e through f).
For these reasons, I escape metacharacters to make it clear that I want to match the actual character itself and to remove ambiguities.
You just need to anchor your regex:
^[0-9-,.+() ]+$
In character class special char doesn't need to be escaped, except ] and -.
But, these char are not escaped when:
] is alone in the char class []]
- is at the begining [-abc] or at the end [abc-] of the char class or after the last end range [a-c-x]
Escape characters with special meaning in your RegExp. If you're not sure and it isn't an alphabet character, it usually doesn't hurt to escape it, too.
If the whole string must match, include the start ^ and end $ of the string in your RegExp, too.
/^[\d\-,\.\+\(\) ]*$/
The code is showed as follows:
alert(/symbol([.\n]+?)symbol/gi.test('symbolbbbbsymbol'));
or
alert(/#([.\n]+?)#/gi.test('#bbbb#'));
Because you are looking for dots with a character class inside of < and >. Remove the character class:
/<(.+?)>/
Clarification after question edit:
First code block should be using this pattern: /symbol(.+?)symbol/
Second code block should be using this pattern: /#(.+?)#/
The regex returns false because a dot loses its special power to match any character (but newlines) when placed within a character class [] - it only matches a simple ".".
To match and capture the substring delimited at either end by the same single character, the most efficient pattern to use is
/#([^#]+)#/
To match and capture the substring delimited at either end by the same sequence of characters, the pattern to use is
/symbol(.+?)symbol/
or, if you want to match across newlines
/symbol([\s\S]+?)symbol/
where [\s\S] matches any space or non-space character, which equates to any character.
The ? is inlcuded to make the pattern match lazily, i.e. to make sure the match ends on the first occurence of "symbol".
I am using a javascript validator which will let me build custom validation based on regexp
From their website: regexp=^[A-Za-z]{1,20}$ allow up to 20 alphabetic characters.
This will return an error if the entered data in the input field is outside this scope.
What I need is the string that will trigger an error for the inputfield if the value has an asterix as the first character.
I can make it trigger the opposite (an error if the first character is NOT an asterix) with:
regexp=[\u002A]
Heeeeelp please :-D
How about:
^[^\*]
Which matches any input that does not start with an asterisk; judging from the example regex, any input which does not match the regex will be cause a validation error, so with the double negative you should get the behaviour you want :-)
Explanation of my regex:
The first ^ means "at the start of the string"
The [ ... ] construct is a character class, which matches a single character among the ones enclosed within the brackets
The ^ in the beginning of the character class means "negate the character class", i.e. match any character that's not one of the ones listed
The \* means a literal *; * has a special meaning in regular expressions, so I've escaped it with a backslash. As Rob has pointed out in the comments, it's not strictly necessary to escape (most) special characters within a character class
How about ^[^\*].+.
Broken down:
^ = start of string.
[^\*] = any one character not the '*'.
.+ = any other character at least once.
You can invert character class by using ^ after [
regexp=[^\u002A]