RegEx Pattern to Match Only Certain Characters

Question

I'm a newbie to RegEx, and this particular issue is flummoxing me. This is for use with a JavaScript function.

I need to validate an input so that it matches only this criteria:

• Letters A-Z (upper and lowercase)
• Numbers 0-9
• The following additional characters: space, period (.), comma (,), plus (+), and dash (-)

I can write a pattern easily enough for the first two criteria, but the third one is more difficult. This is the last pattern I managed, but it doesn't seem to work with the test string Farh%%$$+++,

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer 1

The dash needs to be first in order not to be interpreted as a range separator. Also, make sure you anchor your regex with a ^ and $ at the beginning and end respectively so that your entire test string gets swallowed by your regex.

/^[-+., A-Za-z0-9]+$/

Answer 2

/^[a-z0-9 .,+-]+$/i

Answer 3

I just tested this out, and it seems to work at least from my first round testing.

^[a-zA-Z 0-9\.\,\+\-]*$