Develop Reference

Regex for football teams representing two participants playing against each other

My task is to have :
EventName is a string representing two participants playing against
each other.
I was thinking how can I do this with Data Annotation. So far I have this:
[RegularExpression("^[^0-9]+$", ErrorMessage = "Name cannot contain numbers")]
[Required, MinLength(10), MaxLength(150)]
I think I should only allow 1 delimiter( either "-" ":" or space) between those two teams. Anything else should not be allowed. No special characters, no numbers.
Could someone point me to the right direction?
Also does anyone know if football teams can have digits in their names?
Something like Villa1874 - Levski1914 ?

To allow a single delimiter (:,- or single white-space, any can be surrounded by white-spaces) and numbers/underscores in the team names:
^\w+ *[ -:] *\w+$
Explanation:
^ asserts position at start of a line
\w+ matches any word character (equal to [a-zA-Z0-9_]) (1 or more)
* matches any white-space (0 or more)
[ -:] Match a single character present in the list
* matches any white-space (0 or more)
\w+ matches any word character (equal to [a-zA-Z0-9_]) (1 or more)
^ asserts position at end of a line
Test: https://regex101.com/r/gBZDLE/6
If you don't want to allow numbers or underscores in the team names you can replace \w by [A-Za-z] instead:
^[A-Za-z]+ *[ -:] *[A-Za-z]+$
Test: https://regex101.com/r/gBZDLE/7
The previous doesn't allow spaces in the team names. To do so, you may want to match [A-Za-z]+(?: [A-Za-z]+)* instead. This will match any name that starts with an alphabetic character and contain one or more words separated by single-spaces (e.g. "Manchester" or "Manchester United"). Full regex:
^[A-Za-z]+(?: [A-Za-z]+)* *[ -:] *[A-Za-z]+(?: [A-Za-z]+)*$
Test: https://regex101.com/r/gBZDLE/5
Explanation of [A-Za-z]+(?: [A-Za-z]+):
[A-Za-z]+ Match a single alphabetic character (+ one or more times)
(?: [A-Za-z]+) Non-capture group (?: ), matches a single white-space followed by an alphabetic character one or more times [A-Za-z]+

C# regex string that is not another string

I want to match an at least 3 letter word, preceded by any character from class [-_ :] any amount of times, that is not this specific 3 letter word string2.
Ex:
if string2="VER"
in
" ODO VER7"
matched " ODO"
or
"_::ATTPQ VER7"
matched "_::ATTPQ"
but if
" VER7"
it shoudn't match " VER"
so I thought about
Regex.Match(inputString, #"[-_:]*[A-Z]{3,}[^(VER)]", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
where
[-_:]* checks for any character in class, appearing 0 or more times
[A-Z] the range of letters that could form the word
{3,} the minimum amount of letters to form the word
[^(VER)] the grouping construct that shouldn't appear
I believe however that [A-Z]{3,} results in any letter at least 3 times (not what i want)
and [^(VER)] not sure what it's doing

Using [^(VER)] means a negated character class where you would match any character except ( ) V E or R
For you example data, you could match 0+ spaces or tabs (or use \s to also match a newline).
Then use a negative lookahead before matching 3 or more times A-Z to assert what is on the right is not VER.
If that is the case, match 3 or more times A-Z followed by a space and VER itself.
^[ \t]*[-_:]*(?!VER)[A-Z]{3,} VER
Regex demo

^\s*[-_:]*(?!VER)[A-Z]{3,}
This regex asserts that between the start and end of the string, there's zero or more of your characters, followed by at least 3 letters. It uses a negative lookahead to make sure that VER (or whatever you want) is not present.
Demo

This would match the preceding class characters [-_ :] of 3 or more letters/numbers
that do not start with VER (as in the samples given) :
[-_ :]+(?!VER)[^\W_]{3,}
https://regex101.com/r/wLw23I/1

Regular Expression for no repeating special characters (C#)

I am new to regular expressions and need a regular expression for address, in which user cannot enter repeating special characters such as: ..... or ,,,.../// etc and none of the special characters could be entered more than 5 times in the string.
...,,,....// =>No Match
Street no. 40. hello. =>Match
Thanks in advance!
I have tried this:
([a-zA-Z]+|[\s\,\.\/\-]+|[\d]+)|(\(([\da-zA-Z]|[^)^(]+){1,}\))
It selects all alphanumeric n some special character with no empty brackets.

You can use Negative lookahead construction that asserts what is invalid to match. Its format is (?! ... )
For your case you can try something like this:
This will not match the input string if it has 2 or more consecutive dots, commas or slashes (or any combination of them)
(?!.*[.,\/]{2}) ... rest of the regex
This will not match the input string if it has more than 5 characters 'A'.
(?!(.*A.*){5}) ... rest of the regex
This will match everything except your restrictions. Repplace last part (.*) with your regex.
^(?!.*[.,\/]{2})(?!(.*\..*){5})(?!(.*,.*){5})(?!(.*\/.*){5}).*$
Note: This regex may no be optimized. It may be faster if you use loop to iterate over string characters and count their occurences.

You can use this regex:
^(?![^,./-]*([,./-])\1)(?![^,./-]*([,./-])(?:[^,./-]*\2){4})[ \da-z,./-]+$
In C#:
foundMatch = Regex.IsMatch(yourString, #"^(?![^,./-]*([,./-])\1)(?![^,./-]*([,./-])(?:[^,./-]*\2){4})[ \da-z,./-]+$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
Explanation
The ^ anchor asserts that we are at the beginning of the string
The negative lookahead (?![^,./-]*([,./-])\1) asserts that it is not possible to match any number of special chars, followed by one special char (captured to Group 1) followed by the same special char (the \1 backreference)
The negative lookahead (?![^,./-]*([,./-])(?:[^,./-]*\2){4}) ` asserts that it is not possible to match any number of special chars, followed by one special char (captured to Group 2), then any non-special char and that same char from Group 2, four times (five times total)
The $ anchor asserts that we are at the end of the string

A regular expression string to detect invalid strings is:
[^\w \-\r\n]{2}|(?:[\w \-]+[^\w \-\r\n]){5}
As C# string literal (regular and verbatim):
"[^\\w \\-\\r\\n]{2}|(?:[\\w \\-]+[^\\w \\-\\r\\n]){5}"
#"[^\w \-\r\n]{2}|(?:[\w \-]+[^\w \-\r\n]){5}"
It is much easier to find a string than to validate if a string does not contain ...
It can be checked with this expression if the string entered by the user is invalid because of a match of 2 special characters in sequence OR 5 special characters used in the string.
Explanation:
[^...] ... a negative character class definition which matches any character NOT being one of the characters listed within the square brackets.
\w ... a word character which is either a letter, a digit or an underscore.
The next character is simply a space character.
\- ... the hyphen character which must be escaped with a backslash within square brackets as otherwise the hyphen character would be interpreted as "FROM x TO z" (except when being the first or the last character within the square brackets).
\r ... carriage return
\n ... line-feed
Therefore [^\w \-\r\n] finds a character which is NOT a letter, NOT a digit, NOT an underscore, NOT a space, NOT a hyphen, NOT a carriage return and also NOT a line-feed.
{2} ... the preceding expression must match 2 such characters.
So with the expression [^\w \-\r\n]{2} it can be checked if the string contains 2 special characters in a sequence which makes the string invalid.
| ... OR
(?:...) ... none marking group needed here for applying the expression inside with the multiplier {5} at least 5 times.
[...] ... a positive character class definition which matches any character being one of the characters listed within the square brackets.
[\w \-]+ ... find a word character, or a space, or a hyphen 1 or more times.
[^\w \-\r\n] ... and next character being NOT a word character, space, hyphen, carriage return or line-feed.
Therefore (?:[\w \-]+[^\w \-\r\n]){5} finds a string with 5 "special" characters between "standard" characters.

What regex for matching words with keyword '('?

In my c# code I need to get a word if the words before match specific words:
var match= Regex.Match(someLine, #"^(FIRST WORDS) (\w+) (SECOND WORDS | PROBLEM KEYWORD \() (\w+)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
var neededWord= match.Groups[4].Value;
If the string equals "FIRST WORDS SOME WORDS PROBLEM KEYWORD (SOMETHING AGAIN)", I would like to get 'SOMETHING' as my needed word. But this does not work. It returns an empty string.
What am I doing wrong?

RegEx Demo
^FIRST WORDS[^\(]+\(([^\)]+)\)
Debuggex Demo
Description
^ assert position at start of the string
FIRST WORDS matches the characters FIRST WORDS literally (case sensitive)
[^\(]+ match a single character not present in the list below
Quantifier: Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed [greedy]
\( matches the character ( literally
\( matches the character ( literally
1st Capturing group ([^\)]+)
[^\)]+ match a single character not present in the list below
Quantifier: Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed [greedy]
\) matches the character ) literally
\) matches the character ) literally
Note: if you need only the word SOMETHING I can edit the RegEx, also Group 1 will contain your requested results.

Trying to understand this regex

I have this regex
^(\\w|#|\\-| |\\[|\\]|\\.)+$
I'm trying to understand what it does exactly but I can't seem to get any result...
I just can't understand the double backslashes everywhere... Isn't double backslash supposed to be used to get a single backslash?
This regex is to validate that a username doesn't use weird characters and stuff.
If someone could explain me the double backslashes thing please. #_#
Additional info: I got this regex in C# using Regex.IsMatch to check if my username string match the regex. It's for an asp website.

My guess is that it's simply escaping the \ since backslash is the escape character in c#.
string pattern = "^(\\w|#|\\-| |\\[|\\]|\\.)+$";
Can be rewritten using a verbatim string as
string pattern = #"^(\w|#|\-| |\[|\]|\.)+$";
Now it's a bit easier to understand what's going on. It will match any word character, at-sign, hyphen, space, square bracket or period, repeated one or more times. The ^ and $ match the begging and end of the string, respectively, so only those characters are allowed.
Therefore this pattern is equivalent to:
string pattern = #"^([\w# \[\].-])+$";

Double slash are supposed to be single slash. Double slash are used to escape the slash itself, as slashes are used for other escape characters in C# String context e.g. \n stands for new line
With double slashes sorted out, it becomes ^(\w|#|\-| |\[|\]|\.)+$
Break down this regex, as | means OR, and \w|#|\-| |\[|\]|\. would mean \w or # or \- or space or \[ or \] or \.. That is, any alphanumeric character, #, -, space, [, ] and . characters. Note that this slash is regex escape, to escape -, [, ] and . characters as they all have special meanings in regex context
And, + means the previous token (i.e. \w|#|\-| |\[|\]|\.) repeated one or more times
So, the entire thing means one or more of any combination of alphanumeric character, #, -, space, [, ] and . characters.

There are online tools to analyze regexes. Once such is at http://www.myezapp.com/apps/dev/regexp/show.ws
where it reports
Sequence: match all of the followings in order
BeginOfLine
Repeat
CapturingGroup
GroupNumber:1
OR: match either of the followings
WordCharacter
#
-
[
]
.
one or more times
EndOfLine
As others have noted, the double backslashes just escape a backslash so you can embed the regex in a string. For example, "\\w" will be interpreted as "\w" by the parser.

^ means beginning of the line.
the parentheses is use for grouping
\w is a word character
| means OR
# match the # character
\- match the hyphen character
[ and ] matches the squares brackets
\. match a period
+ means one or more
$ the end of line.
So the regex is use to match a string which contains only word characters or an # or an hyphen or a space or squares brackets or a dot.

Here's what it means:
^(\\w|#|\\-| |\\[|\\]|\\.)+$
^ - Means the regex starts at the beginning of the string. The match shouldn't start in the middle of the string.
Here's the individual things in the parentheses:
\\w - Indicates a "word" character. Normally, this is shown as \w, but this is being escaped.
# - Indicates an # symbol is allowed
\\- - Indicates a - is allowed. This is escaped since the dash can have other meanings in regex. Since it's not in a character class, I don't believe this is technically needed.
- A space is allowed
\\[ and \\] - [ and ] are allowed.
\\. - A period is a valid character. Escaped because periods have special meanings in regex.
Now all of those characters have | as delimiters in the parentheses - this means OR. So any of those characters are valid.
The + at the end means one or more characters as described in parentheses are valid. The $ means the end of the regex must match the end of the string.
Note that the double slashes aren't necessary if you just prefix the string like this:
#"\w" is the same as "\\w"