Regex | validation error

Question

I'm trying to validate a USA mobile number, since I'm using pre-built javascript validation library I just replaced this regex validation with the previous one which comes with the validation library.

previous validation regex:

"telephone":{
"regex":"/^[0-9\-\(\)\ ]{10,10}$/",
"alertText":"* Invalid phone number"},

This works like 2126661234 but not in USA standard.

After I changed:

"telephone":{
"regex":"/^[2-9]\d{2}-\d{3}-\d{4}$/",
"alertText":"* Invalid phone number"},

Now every entry I get an error even if I enter 212-666-1234 I really don't know what is the wrong, so I'm expecting some help.

+1 for using regexlib. Are you sure the previous version had slashes in the string? "/.../" — Kobi
– Kobi, Commented May 20, 2010 at 6:48

Amarghosh · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-20 06:58:53Z

4

You need to escape the backslashes

"telephone":{
"regex":"/^[2-9]\\d{2}-\\d{3}-\\d{4}$/",
"alertText":"* Invalid phone number"},

/^[2-9]\d{2}-\d{3}-\d{4}$/ works only in regex literals as in

var r = /^[2-9]\d{2}-\d{3}-\d{4}$/;

When you are using strings to initialize regex, you should escape the backslashes

var r = new RegExp("^[2-9]\\d{2}-\\d{3}-\\d{4}$");

answered May 20, 2010 at 6:58

Amarghosh

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1 Comment

Kobi Over a year ago

Good catch. This also explains why the original seemed to work; it looked like [0-9-() ] - JavaScript strings tend to ignore wrongly escaped characters, and - became literal after a range, much like [a-z-].

Eric Eijkelenboom · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-20 06:49:25Z

0

Looks like the original regex escapes the - sign, like this: \-.

I don't see you doing that in your second example.

answered May 20, 2010 at 6:49

Eric Eijkelenboom

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2 Comments

Kobi Over a year ago

That was inside a character class, where - means range: [a-z] vs. \d-\d. The regex seems ok.

Eric Eijkelenboom Over a year ago

@Kobi, MMRUser: The second dash in example 1 is escaped with a backslash, that is not related to the range a-z. So, I'm saying that maybe your regex should look like this: /^[2-9]\d{2}\-\d{3}\-\d{4}$/

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