CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regex
Vlad Alexeev
Vlad Alexeev

Reputation: 2214

RegEx to contain at least one dot

Here's my regex :

\b(https?|www)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]*[.]{1,256}

I know I'm doing something wrong because I use RegEx very rarely. The idea of the last [.]{1,256} was to make sure of having at least one "." in. So, without it I got "https://www" match, so I wanted to make sure that at least one dot exists. But with the expression above, it cuts to the first dot, not the whole thing.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1832

Answers (1)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 626871

First of all, www before :// does not make much sense, it can occur after ://, so it can be removed.

Both [-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]* and [-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]* can match an empty string, and the [.]{1,256} at the end of your pattern matches 1 to 256 dots, that is why you get matches up to a dot.

You may refactor the pattern to match all those chars you allow before a dot, then match a dot, and then match any amount of chars you allow, together with a dot:

\bhttps?://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,;]*\.[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*

Here,

  • [-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,;]* - matches 0 or more chars you allow but a dot
  • \. - this matches a dot
  • [-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]* - 0 or more allowed chars including a dot.

So, at least 1 dot will get matched.

Upvotes: 2

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