Jquery validate: Regexing a non-US phonenumber

Question

I'm using this:

jQuery.validator.addMethod("regex2", function(value, element, param) {
  return value.match(new RegExp("." + param + "$"));
});

$("#phonenumber").rules("add", { regex2: "[0-9]+"})

to validate a phone. The phone number must be at least 7 digits long, the I got this regex from elsewhere and am using the parameter minlength=7, but this is obviously unsuitable. How should this validation be done?

I live in Venezuela. So I think this is useless. How can I change it? In my country 0416-414 33 44 should be considered a valid input for a phone number.

Does there have to be a blank space at the end or is it optional? Does it have to be exactly one space, or can it be more than one? Does it have to be a space character (U+0020) or could it be any whitespace? — Mark Byers, Sep 11 '10 at 03:03
it doesn't have to be the space, I'm altering the question to suit alcuadrado's answer, as it seems the best solution. — andandandand, Sep 11 '10 at 03:15

Mark Byers · Answer 1 · 2010-09-11T03:22:29.913

3

Assuming:

The space character can be any whitespace.
The space is optional.
There can be more than one space.
There must be at least seven digits.

Then change "[0-9]+" to "[0-9]{7,}\s*$".

It also seems that the "." is incorrect and should be a "^".

edited Sep 11 '10 at 03:22

answered Sep 11 '10 at 03:02

Mark Byers

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problem here is that it kills the validation. it will count the spaces as digits, an user may put only blank spaces on the phone field. – andandandand Sep 11 '10 at 03:13

alcuadrado · Answer 2 · 2010-09-11T03:13:15.783

2

You cant first trim and then validate, or just add a \s? before the $ in this line:

  return value.match(new RegExp("." + param + "$"));

Change the ? for a * to accept more than one blank

edited Sep 11 '10 at 03:13

answered Sep 11 '10 at 03:02

alcuadrado

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`\b` means word boundary, not blank. – Mark Byers Sep 11 '10 at 03:09
actually, trimming seems the best choice. I want to accept characters like - and blank space for the user to write but don't count them as digits, as I have a requirement of at least 7 digits in the phone. – andandandand Sep 11 '10 at 03:16

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 11 '10 at 03:08

Are you sure about that . at the front of the regex? I wonder if that's supposed to be a caret ^ which is counterpart to $: it anchors the regex so the entire string must match the regex.

You could add spaces to the regex, but a more elegant solution would be to trim it first. Trimming a string removes whitespace from the beginning and end. Either of these will work:

// Trim value before matching against regex.
return jQuery.trim(value).match(new RegExp("^" + param + "$"));

// Allow spaces at beginning or end with " *" (space + asterisk).
return value.match(new RegExp("^ *" + param + " *$"));

Also, while we're at it you could make this a bit more robust by adding parentheses around param.

// Add parentheses for robustness.
return jQuery.trim(value).match(new RegExp("^(?:" + param + ")$"));

That way your new regex will work even if param is, say, this|that. You'd want to match ^(this|that)$ rather than ^this|that$, since the latter would be equivalent to the incorrect (^this)|(that$).

This was helpful and illuminating. I ended up using it elsewhere. Thanks. — andandandand, Sep 11 '10 at 14:44

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 11 '10 at 17:09

You may find the following regex useful, it basically first strips all valid special characters which a phone number anywhere in the world can contain (spaces, parens, +, -, ., ext) and then counts the digits if there are at least 7.

$.validator.addMethod('phone', function(value, element) {
    return this.optional(element) || (/^\d{7,}$/).test(value.replace(/[\s()+\-\.]|ext/gi, ''));
});

Use it with <input class="phone">.

Jquery validate: Regexing a non-US phonenumber

4 Answers4