How to validate using Regular Pattern Matching ?

[Anon]

I have to Validate a user input Color coding that has to accept HEX values only, i.e. it has to have '#CCFF00' as e.g.

1st Character as # followed by HEX Values between 0-9 and A-F only 6 Chars.

I tried using this, didn't work but..

if (! eregi("^{#([0-9][A-F]{6})",} $input_color)) {
echo "Error : in Color Codings" ;
}

Please tell me where am i going wrong. i always tend to error in Pattern matching. it is so tricky at times.

Thanks in Advance.

Bijal .

[Anon]

your match is checking for a digit and then for six letters. try:

eregi("^{#([0-9A-F]{6})",} $input_color))

--
rad

[Anon]

If you can, use preg_match - Perl regex is much more elegant than the PHP regex... try this:

/^{#[\da-zA-Z]{6}$/}

Note that this expects that the string is composed entirely of the hex value, i.e. a seven-character string like #000000 and nothing else. Remove the $ if you want to keep it the way you had it - only matching at the beginning of a string.
Oh yeah, this ^ has preg_match in mind, so if you don't have preg functions available, let me know, I'll do one that'll work in ereg.

[Anon]

This should work, it will make sure that $input_color has a # and six numbers or letters between a and f, it also checks to make sure that$input_color is 7 characters long

if (! eregi("^{#([0-9a-f]{6})",} $input_color) || (strlen($input_color) != "7")) {
echo "Error : in Color Coding ";
}
else {
print "Okay ";
}

[Anon]

Thanks, This worked.

[Anon]

if (!eregi("^{#([0-9a-f]{6}$)",} $input_color)) {
print "Error : in Color Coding ";
} else {
print "Okay ";
}

Rad told me that I could do the length check by adding a $...

[Anon]

Thanks rad, it did work.

[Anon]

I was just about to say you could add the $ to the end. Got it from RAD also - Thanks RAD!

[Anon]

Thanks Kyle for providing a soln. in PREG.

Actually i have PREG functions on my development server, but i would prefer to use Regular pattern matching for this, as this piece of software is going to be installed on many servers and PHP installations globally. I may not be sure of PREG installations along with PHP in all of them.
Thanks anyhow, it dod work on my machine.

I am using the soln. provided by rad and Louie.