Thank you all for your help!!  You suggestions solve my problem! ------------------------ Keith Smith --- On Wed, 7/20/11, Kevin Brown wrote: From: Kevin Brown Subject: Re: PHP preg_match question To: "Main PLUG discussion list" Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 10:44 PM Another way would be if ($vaidateStr == preg_replace("/[^a-z0-9\-]/i", "", $vaidateStr)) {           /true, or valid... } the "i" after the last / makes it case insensitive. So it should match upper and lower alpha characters. > Ah yes, I also forgot the uppercase chars > >      if ($vaidateStr == preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\-]/", "", $vaidateStr)) { >         /true, or valid... >      } > > BTW also as Eric says, the carrot (^) inside the square brackets means > "anything but" (negation), thus how this works.. > > Ben > > On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 9:38 PM, Eric Cope > wrote: > >     Here is the regular expression: > >     /^[a-zA-Z0-9\-]+$/ > >     the ^ requires the pattern match at the beginning of the string. >     The + requires at least one of these characters, but no upper limit. >     You can use * if you don't need the lower limit of 1. >     $ requires the patten match all the way to the end of the string. >     The dash requires escaping, hence the back slash. > >     http://www.regular-expressions.info/anchors.html > >     Thanks, >     Eric > >     On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 8:34 PM, keith smith      > wrote: > > >         Hi, > >         I have an input string that should only be lower or upper >         alphas, numbers and can contain a hyphen. > >         I'm trying to figure out how to get PHP preg_match to verify the >         input string only contains these chars. > >         I tried some thing like this and it always returns true if I >         have one or more of the specified chars, even if I have a char >         that is not specified. > >         I need a true for any string that contains Alphas and/or numbers >         and/or one or more hyphens.  I need it to return if the string >         contains anything else. > >         preg_match("/[a-z0-9\+\-]/", $vaidateStr) > >         I do not need to use preg_match, I'm looking for a simple solution. > >         Any pointers are much appreciated. > >         ------------------------ >         Keith Smith > > >         --------------------------------------------------- >         PLUG-discuss mailing list - >         PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us >          >         To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >         http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > >     --------------------------------------------------- >     PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us >      >     To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >     http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > > -- > --- > Ben > > /print ''.join(map(lambda x: chr(x), ( (ord('a')-(3*5)), > int(math.sqrt(math.pi*76)*5+2), int(math.ceil(math.e)*28), > int(math.floor(math.e)*35), long(abs(4%3*35+3)*2))))/ > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss