CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regex
Goldbones
Goldbones

Reputation: 1457

Regex for text (string and numbers) between Pipes

I have this scenario:

Ex1:

Valid:
12345678|abcdefghij|aaaaaaaa
Invalid:
12345678|abcdefghijk|aaaaaaaaa

Which means that between pipes the maximum length is 8. How can I make in the regex?

I put this

^(?:[^|]+{0,7}(?:\|[^|]+)?$ but it´s not working

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1155

Answers (2)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 627380

When you want to match delimited data, you should refrain from using plain unrestricted .. You need to match parts between |, so you should consider [^|] negated character class construct that matches any char but |.

Since you need to limit the number of the pattern occurrences of the negated character class, restrict it with a limiting quantifier {1,8} that matches 1 to 8 consecutive occurrences of the quantified subpattern.

Use

^[^|]{1,8}(?:\|[^|]{1,8})*$

See the regex demo.

Details

  • ^ - start of a string
  • [^|]{1,8} - any 1 to 8 chars other than |
  • (?:\|[^|]{1,8})* - 0 or more consecutive sequences of:
    • \| - a literal pipe symbol
    • [^|]{1,8} - any 1 to 8 chars other than |
  • $ - end of string.

Then, the [^|] can be restricted further as per requirements. If you only need to validate a string that has ASCII letters, digits, (, ), +, ,, ., /, :, ?, whitespace and -, you need to use

^[A-Za-z0-9()+,.\/:?\s-]{1,8}(?:\|[A-Za-z0-9()+,.\/:?\s-]{1,8})*$

See another regex demo.

Upvotes: 1

Tim Biegeleisen
Tim Biegeleisen

Reputation: 522626

Try the following pattern:

^.{1,8}(?:\|.{1,8})*$

The basic idea is to match between one and eight characters, followed by | and another 1 to 8 characters, that term repeated zero or more times. Explore the demo with any data you want to see how it works.

Sample data:

123
12345678
abcdefghi                      (no match)
12345678|abcdefgh|aaaaaaaa
12345678|abcdefghijk|aaaaaaaaa (no match)

Demo here:

Regex101

Upvotes: 3

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