How to modify this regex expression to accept hyphens?

Question

I have the following Regex (in PHP) that I am using.

'/^[a-zA-Z0-9&\'\s]+$/'

It currently accepts alpha-numerics only. I need to modify it to accept hyphens (i.e. the character '-' without the quotes obviously) as well.

So it will accept strings like 'bart-simpson' OR 'bond-007' etc.

Can anyone explain how to modiy the pattern?

Answer 1

Just add it to the character class:

'/^[a-zA-Z0-9&\'\s-]+$/'

Answer 2

Just add a hyphen at the end of the character group within brackets. This ought to work:

'/^[a-zA-Z0-9&\'\s-]+$/'

Answer 3

I add the hyphen at the front, to make it fairly obvious that it isn't part of a range:

'/^[-a-zA-Z0-9&\'\s]+$/'