Expand inverted regex to allow 1 space character

Question

How can I alter the pattern below to allow 1 space character ?

$name = 'too long name';
$pattern_name = '/[^a-zA-Z]/';
if (preg_match($pattern_name,$name)) { // remove any non-letter characters
  $name = preg_replace($pattern_name,'',$name);
  $errors['name'] = 'Invalid characters found and removed in name';
}

Using either of these patterns does not work:

$pattern_name = '/[^a-zA-Z ?]/';  
$pattern_name = '/[^a-zA-Z] ?/';

Expected result is a match, since 2 space characters exists in $name, thus the if-statement should be true and the replace function will update $name so its value will become "too longname".

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 18:39

3

You'll have to make your pattern more explicit. If you can have one space at maximum, and it must be surrounded by letters, then:

$pattern_name = '/^[a-z]+( [a-z]+)?$/i';

answered Mar 30 '11 at 18:39

mario

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This matches everything after the first space, which is not desirable as the following replace function will remove too much. Maybe I need to have 2 patterns, where the first removes all other spaces but the first. The second pattern will then remain as the original posted. – Kim Apr 03 '11 at 18:03
Yes, that seems the issue here. You cannot use the same regex for both matching and filtering. You will need `/^[\w ]+$/` for the preg_match, and `preg_replace('/^([a-z]+( [a-z]+)?).*?$/s','\1', $name)` for the filtering. – mario Apr 03 '11 at 18:12

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 18:35

0

It should be as simple as adding a space in the brackets.

$pattern_name = '/[^a-zA-Z ]/';

answered Mar 30 '11 at 18:35

Flipper

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No, because that will disallow any spaces in the string. – CanSpice Mar 30 '11 at 18:37
This post right here says that a " " will give you a single space. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/559363/matching-a-space-in-regex I thought I understood inverted regex, but nevermind. – Flipper Mar 30 '11 at 18:42
This also matches only one character. – ridgerunner Mar 30 '11 at 20:08

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 18:39

0

I'd invert the regex, and instead of trying to find invalid characters, match valid names (is that what you are doing?). That gives us this regex: /[a-zA-Z]+ [a-zA-Z]+/. Match valid characters, one space and then more valid characters.

answered Mar 30 '11 at 18:39

Håvard

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Expand inverted regex to allow 1 space character

3 Answers3