How to validate that a string is just arabic and numbers?

Question

The company I work in decided to sell a product to an Arab company.

I need a way to be sure that a string is just arabic letters or numbers (with space ofc).

how to do that please?

I searched on google but it seems that the arabic language is not so popular

you could consult the unicode charts and make a method that validates a string against your desired range of arabic chars — Wim Ombelets, Jul 30 '14 at 11:19
Why do you need to do that? Wouldn't it be enough to just use `char.IsLetterOrDigit` etc.? — Luaan, Jul 30 '14 at 11:19
There's also the [Microsoft Translator API](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd576287.aspx) — DGibbs, Jul 30 '14 at 11:20
@Luaan I just need the string to be arabic and numbers and space, but in your case, i will have english chars which is not allowed in this case — Agnieszka Polec, Jul 30 '14 at 11:20
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/910793/detect-encoding-and-make-everything-utf-8 — mohsen solhnia, Jul 30 '14 at 11:20
@mohsensolhnia that is a lot of pain, could you help me please with a simple start up so I can continue. — Agnieszka Polec, Jul 30 '14 at 11:22

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 30 '14 at 11:26

3

I think you can use this regexp expression for what you need:

[\u0600-\u06ff]\?[ ]\?[0-9]\?

The [\u0600-\u06ff] is for the arabic characters.

Example:

internal bool HasArabicCharacters(string text)
{

  Regex regex = new Regex(

    "[\u0600-\u06ff]\?[ ]\?[0-9]\?");

  return regex.IsMatch(text);
}

answered Jul 30 '14 at 11:26

Estevex

791
8
17

that seems a very good solution, but please what if the use enter the number first then the arabic letter then a space then an arabic then a number, your way won't work. I need exactly like you did but without specifying the order. did u get me plz? – Agnieszka Polec Jul 30 '14 at 11:27
http://stackoverflow.com/a/3533526/1697811 check here. Hope it helps you. – Estevex Jul 30 '14 at 11:32
I will try with your solution. +1 – Agnieszka Polec Jul 30 '14 at 11:34
You can also try "[0-9]\?[\u0600-\u06ff]\?[ ]\?[0-9]\?" to allow numbers before characters. – Estevex Jul 30 '14 at 11:36
Or just `"[\u0600-\06ff\\s0-9]*"` – Luaan Jul 30 '14 at 11:40
@Luaan that doesn't include the space, does it? – Agnieszka Polec Jul 30 '14 at 11:41
@AgnieszkaPolec `\s` means "any whitespace character". You can use space instead if you really only want a simple space. – Luaan Jul 30 '14 at 11:42
@Luaan when I tried your regular expression, I got this exception `parsing "[؀-` why please? – Agnieszka Polec Jul 30 '14 at 11:54

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 30 '14 at 11:25

1

The best way to do this in my opinion is by Regular Expression.

Regex is a very powerful tool for these kind of tasks.

for example, you can write the following expression to filter only Arabic letters (I've used that for Hebrew): \p{IsArabic}

There is a built-in support for Character Classes in Regex.

Please find attached a great link that helped me understand exactly what is possible and how: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/20bw873z(v=vs.110).aspx

In addition, a must have tool for any Regex developer that both helps you create expressions visually, and evaluate those expressions against data and review the results. Expresso: http://www.ultrapico.com/ExpressoDownload.htm

Hope this helps, Ofir.

answered Jul 30 '14 at 11:25

Ofir Makmal

501
2
3

+1 didn't know about the named language blocks, really helpful – DGibbs Jul 30 '14 at 11:28
@DGibbs which blocks? where did he state that please? – Agnieszka Polec Jul 30 '14 at 11:29
@AgnieszkaPolec Don't be lazy. Read the link he provided. – DGibbs Jul 30 '14 at 11:31
@DGibbs you completely right. I am a little lazy tired today. I will read them – Agnieszka Polec Jul 30 '14 at 11:33

How to validate that a string is just arabic and numbers?

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