[RESOLVED] preg_match_all unknown problem

kingdm

Good day.

I have a preg_match_all created so that I can validate my input in a form, which I only requires number (0-9), alphabets (a-z or A - Z) and the dash (-).

if(preg_match_all('/[^a-z0-9-]/i', $db_marinanumber, $invalid)) 
		{ 
		   $errors[] = "Your Marina license number contains invalid character: " . join('',array_unique($invalid[0]));
		}

I get an error, even if I input the correct input. Example, the correct input is 10813-91839-23 or A1239-123A-23 something like that. No spaces.

I still get the errors and the errors says blank a whitespace character. But I don't have any on that in my input. Why is that?

kingdm

Sorry for posting, it works after I close my browser. Why is that?

cgraz

You are only testing for one character. You need to specify that there will be one or more characters after your character set by using a "+", or specifiy a min and max using {min,max}.

You also need to test from the beginning of the string to the end of the string using ^ and $.

Try this:

if (!preg_match('/^[a-z0-9-]+$/i', $db_marinanumber)) {
	echo 'Fail';
} else {
	echo 'Pass!';
}

kingdm

Thanks for your reply cgraz. I changed my script into the one you suggested. Didn't know that it will work better this way.

Thanks.

jay6390

Really you should make a better regex than this. This could simply be

-----------------------------------

and it would validate
You should use something more robust. I'm guessing the licenses have a preset such as
XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXXXXX
where X is the letter/number, and you can validate against a mask like that using

&#37;[a-z0-9]{5}-[a-z0-9]{5}-[a-z0-9]{8}%i