RegExp that matches any String containing "0-9" and "." and "-" and " "

Question

I need t check every line of a file for the following pattern: - 14 Values seperated by an irregular number of spaces. - Values may be negative (-), decimal seperator is a dot followed by maximum one digit - The line ends with several spaces

here is an example line:

10015 20100501  1    4.6    6.4    8.4   10.5   86.6    4.0   13.0    0.9    6.4    0.0 1007.2                                      

Thanks!

Answer 1

This should do it:

/^(-?\d+(\.\d)?\s+){14}$/

Edit: Start and end tags as added by Gumbo.

Answer 2

Try this regular expression:

/^(-?\d+(\.\d)? +){14}$/m

In multiline mode, the ^ and $ match the start and end of the line respectively. -? is for the optional minus sign, \d+(\.\d)? is for the number with optional single decimal place, and  + (space plus +) is for the separating and trailing spaces. That pattern is then repeated exactly 14 time ((…){14}).