76

In jQuery, is there a function/plugin which I can use to match a given regular expression in a string?

For example, in an email input box, I get an email address, and want to see if it is in the correct format. What jQuery function should I use to see if my validating regular expression matches the input?

I've googled for a solution, but I haven't been able to find anything.

Paulo Scardine
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Anand
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    The title of this question is a little misleading. It should perhaps be better qualified to indicate that this has to do with form input value matching. I gave +1 to nickf's answer, because that is what I was looking for. – mydoghasworms Aug 10 '11 at 06:42

7 Answers7

84

If you wanted to search some elements based on a regex, you can use the filter function. For example, say you wanted to make sure that in all the input boxes, the user has only entered numbers, so let's find all the inputs which don't match and highlight them.

$("input:text")
    .filter(function() {
        return this.value.match(/[^\d]/);
    })
    .addClass("inputError")
;

Of course if it was just something like this, you could use the form validation plugin, but this method could be applied to any sort of elements you like. Another example to show what I mean: Find all the elements whose id matches /[a-z]+_\d+/

$("[id]").filter(function() {
    return this.id.match(/[a-z]+_\d+/);
});
nickf
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32

I'm using jQuery and JavaScript and it works fine for me:

var rege = /^([A-Za-z0-9_\-\.])+\@([A-Za-z0-9_\-\.])+\.([A-Za-z]{2,4})$/;
if(rege.test($('#uemail').val())){ //do something }
Peter Mortensen
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Klatys
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    Slight addition, yours does not recognize having a '+' in your email address: var rege = /^([A-Za-z0-9_\+\-\.])+\@([A-Za-z0-9_\-\.])+\.([A-Za-z]{2,4})$/; I'm not saying that mine is perfect, I'm just saying yours doesn't work for my email :-) – keif Dec 06 '10 at 18:24
26

I believe this does it:

http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/

It's got built-in patterns for stuff like URLs and e-mail addresses, and I think you can have it use your own as well.

Daniel Schaffer
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    But what about general regex matching? Maybe something like searching for a regex in some text etc. – Anand Dec 05 '08 at 21:34
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    Well I mean you can always just use javascript's regex straight, if that's all you need to do... http://www.regular-expressions.info/javascript.html – Daniel Schaffer Dec 05 '08 at 21:38
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    Is it just me, or does JQUERY have a horrible website? I can't readily find how to use or download this thing. – Jason Jan 31 '11 at 17:32
26

Unless you're looking for something specific, you can already do Regular Expression matching using regular Javascript with strings.

For example, you can do matching using a string by something like this...

var phrase = "This is a phrase";
phrase = phrase.replace(/is/i, "is not");
alert(phrase);

Is there something you're looking for other than just Regular Expression matching in general?

hugoware
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    Your example will return "This not is a phrase"! :-) – Ian Roke Apr 24 '10 at 13:56
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    Funny catch - I never actually ran the code but you're right - It matches on the first 'is' which is actually at the end of the word 'This' - Since it ignores the rest of the string it doesn't do anything to the second 'is'. Very funny :) – hugoware Apr 24 '10 at 19:25
  • -1 for [not enough jQuery](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/48195/156615) ... ... ... ok, just kidding, I actually upvoted your answer :) – brandizzi Jan 18 '12 at 16:19
3

My code :

$("input.numeric").keypress(function(e) { /* pour les champs qui ne prennent que du numeric en entrée */          
            var key = e.charCode || e.keyCode || 0;                     
            var keychar = String.fromCharCode(key);
            /*alert("keychar:"+keychar + " \n charCode:" + e.charCode + " \n key:" +key);*/
            if (  ((key == 8 || key == 9 || key == 46 || key == 35 || key == 36 || (key >= 37 && key <= 40)) && e.charCode==0) /* backspace, end, begin, top, bottom, right, left, del, tab */
                    || (key >= 48 && key <= 57) ) { /* 0-9 */
                return;
            } else {
                e.preventDefault();
            }
        });
bilelz
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0

A simple nowadays example:

$('#some_input_id').attr('oninput',
"this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9A-Za-z\s_-]/g,'');")

that means all that doesnt match regex becomes nothing , i.e. ''

CodeToLife
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-1

From jquery.validate.js (by joern), contributed by Scott Gonzalez: http://projects.scottsplayground.com/email_address_validation/

/^((([a-z]|\d|[!#\$%&'\*\+\-\/=\?\^_`{\|}~]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])+(\.([a-z]|\d|[!#\$%&'\*\+\-\/=\?\^_`{\|}~]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])+)*)|((\x22)((((\x20|\x09)*(\x0d\x0a))?(\x20|\x09)+)?(([\x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f\x7f]|\x21|[\x23-\x5b]|[\x5d-\x7e]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(\\([\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0d-\x7f]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF]))))*(((\x20|\x09)*(\x0d\x0a))?(\x20|\x09)+)?(\x22)))@((([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])([a-z]|\d|-|\.|_|~|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])*([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])))\.)+(([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])([a-z]|\d|-|\.|_|~|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])*([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])))\.?$/i

Make sure to double up the @@ if you are using MVC Razor:

 /^((([a-z]|\d|[!#\$%&'\*\+\-\/=\?\^_`{\|}~]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])+(\.([a-z]|\d|[!#\$%&'\*\+\-\/=\?\^_`{\|}~]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])+)*)|((\x22)((((\x20|\x09)*(\x0d\x0a))?(\x20|\x09)+)?(([\x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f\x7f]|\x21|[\x23-\x5b]|[\x5d-\x7e]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(\\([\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0d-\x7f]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF]))))*(((\x20|\x09)*(\x0d\x0a))?(\x20|\x09)+)?(\x22)))@@((([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])([a-z]|\d|-|\.|_|~|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])*([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])))\.)+(([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])([a-z]|\d|-|\.|_|~|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])*([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])))\.?$/i

Hungry for spaghetti?

Har
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