CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phppreg-match
user2338925
user2338925

Reputation:

Php preg_match pattern

I have a form field that I want to check if the user submitted a correct pattern. I tried it this way.

// $car_plate should in XXX-1111, or XXX-111(three letters in uppercase followed by a dash and four or three numbers)
<?php
    $car_plate = $values['car_plate'];
    if (!preg_match('[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{3|4}$', $car_plate)) {
        $this->errors ="Pattern for plate number is XXX-1111 or XXX-111";
    } else {
        // code to submit
    }
?>

The following car_plate numbers is in correct format (AAA-456, AGC-4567, WER-123). In this case it always return the error. What is the correct way?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 304

Answers (2)

aequalsb
aequalsb

Reputation: 4035

alternative to TimoSta's answer.

/^[a-zA-Z]{3}-?\d{3,4}$/

this allows for user to enter letters in lowercase and to skip the dash

you can format the data later like this:

$input = 'abc1234';
if ( preg_match( '/^([a-zA-Z]{3})-?(\d{3,4})$/', $input, $matches ) )
{
    $new_input = strtoupper( $matches[1] ) . '-' . $matches[2];
    echo $new_input;
}

outputs: ABC-1234

Upvotes: 2

TimoStaudinger
TimoStaudinger

Reputation: 42460

Looks like you're a little bit off with your regular expression.

Try this one:

/^[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{3,4}$/

In PHP, you have to enclose your regular expression with delimiters, in this case the slashes. In addition to that, {3|4} is not valid, the correct syntax is {3,4} as you can see in the docs covering repetition.

Upvotes: 1

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