SQL Server regular expression constraint

Question

I create a table by query below

CREATE TABLE testing(
    test_field VARCHAR(20) CHECK(test_field like '^[a-zA-z0-9]{6,20}$')
);

the regular expression is working in Javascript and the table was successfully created, but when I trying to execute the insert query below, the error occurred.

INSERT INTO testing VALUES('abcde12345');

The error message is listing below

The INSERT statement conflicted with the CHECK constraint "CK_testing_test_field__173876EA". The conflict occurred in database "TEST", table "dbo.testing", column 'test_field'.

Is there any difference between using Regular Expression in Javascript and SQL Server?

Any pro can help???

Answer 1

Another way in tsql besides creating own functions is to create an XML Schema with a pattern constraint containing the regex:

CREATE XML SCHEMA COLLECTION dbo.RegexValidatorSchema
AS '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified"
           elementFormDefault="qualified"
           xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <xs:element name="test">
        <xs:simpleType>
            <xs:restriction base="xs:string">
                <xs:pattern value="^[a-zA-z0-9]{6,20}$"/>
            </xs:restriction>
        </xs:simpleType>
    </xs:element>
</xs:schema>';

and add a check constraint so inserts/updates are validated:

ALTER TABLE dbo.testing
 ADD CONSTRAINT CK_ValidateValueMatchesPattern 
 CHECK (CAST(ISNULL('<test>' + REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(Value, '&','&amp;'), '<','&lt;'), '>','&gt;') + '</test>','') AS XML(dbo.RegexValidatorSchema)) IS NOT NULL)

but be aware of performance degradation.

Answer 2

There's a workaround for this. Since you want to check every character, you can generate the regex with replicate:

SET @pattern = replicate('[a-zA-Z0-9]', LEN(@VAL));

This is a full function around this hack:

create function dbo.example (@VAL varchar(32))
RETURNS bit
WITH EXECUTE AS CALLER
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @pattern varchar(512);
    SET @pattern = replicate('[a-zA-Z0-9]', LEN(@VAL));
    IF @VAL like @pattern
    BEGIN
        RETURN 1;
    END;
    RETURN 0;
END;
GO

Answer 3

Sql Server does not support POSIX regular expressions, but only a subset.

See here for details.

Answer 4

LIKE does not use regular expressions.

You can add regular expression support to SQL Server by creating your own functions. One method via .NET is detailed in this article.

In your case you can also try the following, but it's not pretty:

   test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'
OR test_field LIKE '[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]'