JavaScript RegEx to allow only AlphaNumeric Characters and some special characters

Question

In a textarea field, i want to allow only alphanumeric characters, -(hyphen),/(forward slash), .(dot) and space. I have gone through similar questions but one way or the other, my exact requirements seem to differ. So, below is the regex i've come up with after reading answers give by members:

/^[a-z0-9\-\/. ]+$/i

I've tested the regex and so far it seems to work but i want to double check. Please verify as to whether the above regex fulfills my requirements.

Looks fine (altough you don't need to escape everything) - just because I have a bit of time I did a load of test data on regexpal.com for you to look at: http://goo.gl/PF7Lk — Jonathon Bolster, Sep 05 '11 at 12:54
Ah yes - silly me. Here's an updated one: http://goo.gl/GFU8U — Jonathon Bolster, Sep 05 '11 at 13:05

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 05 '11 at 12:51

6

You do too much escaping

/^[a-z0-9/. -]+$/i

In a character class, only [, ], \, - and ^ have special meaning, the ^ even only when it is the first character and the - only if it is between characters.

To match a literal ^ just put it into any position but the first. To match a - literally, don't put it between characters (i.e., at the start or at the end).

Escaping things like the /, . or $ is never necessary.

answered Sep 05 '11 at 12:51

Tomalak

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Thanks @Tomalak, i've removed the unnecessary escapes. – Sang Suantak Sep 05 '11 at 13:02

JavaScript RegEx to allow only AlphaNumeric Characters and some special characters

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