Deny string with special characters only

Question

I have a regex that is working fine:

^(?!\\d+$)\\S{8,}$

(?!d+$) // Deny numbers only
\S{8,} // Allow special characters but white spaces and a minimum of 8 characters;

But I need to add one more thing: Deny if the string is special characters only.

tried to apply the same logic as the "only numbers deny", an add

(?!\\S+$))

to the existing regex, but didn't work as expected.

obs: I will work with different languages, so the "special characters" would be:

! @ # $ % & * ( ) _ - = < > , . ? } ] { [ +

Which characters do you consider "special"? See https://stackoverflow.com/a/32311188/3832970. Then just use the right set in the negative lookahead. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Jun 18 '20 at 17:30
Would love an explanation for the downvote, so I can improve next time. @WiktorStribiżew I edited the questions with more info. — PlayHardGoPro, Jun 18 '20 at 17:35
**Duplicate of [Check for special characters in string](https://stackoverflow.com/a/32311188/3832970)** — Wiktor Stribiżew, Jun 18 '20 at 17:49

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-18T17:35:14.603

0

Deny if the string is special characters only.

For this add another negative lookahead assertion:

^(?!\\d+$)(?![-!@#$%&*()_=<>,.;]+$)\\S{8,}$

(?![-!@#$%&*()_=<>,.;]+$) is negative lookahead to fail the match if input contains only those listed characters.

edited Jun 18 '20 at 17:35

answered Jun 18 '20 at 17:30

anubhava

`\W` matches `ż`, it is not special, it is just a letter. – Wiktor Stribiżew Jun 18 '20 at 17:31
Hi! as I will work with multiple languages I believe I only need to deny speicla characters like: `!@#$%&*()-_=<>,.;`. But they are acceptable as long as there is number and/or letters together. Only need to deny special characters only. – PlayHardGoPro Jun 18 '20 at 17:34
OP thought `\S` matches special characters. `\W` is going to confuse OP even more. @PlayHardGoPro, just do what I suggested in the comment. Your strategy is good, all you need to find out is the right set of chars you consider special. – Wiktor Stribiżew Jun 18 '20 at 17:34
1

Thanks for your comment @PlayHardGoPro. I have updated answer accordingly. – anubhava Jun 18 '20 at 17:36
@anubhava Please do not re-open duplicate questions. Please consider re-closing. – Wiktor Stribiżew Jun 18 '20 at 17:49
That wasn't an exact dupe – anubhava Jun 18 '20 at 18:00

1 Answers1