Posted by Captain Paralytic on 02/13/07 13:58

On 13 Feb, 13:36, "Bosconian" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> "Captain Paralytic" <paul_laut...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1171364086.554958.149070@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 13 Feb, 04:06, "Bosconian" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> >> I have a textarea form field for inputting (or pasting) pairs of data.
>
> >> I need a regular expression pattern to validate each line for the
> >> following
>
> >> double quote
> >> number
> >> double quote
> >> comma
> >> double quote
> >> alpha string
> >> double quote
> >> carriage return
>
> >> The following comes close, but doesn't check for a carriage return at the
> >> end of each line:
>
> >> ^"([0-9]?)+"([,]\s?\"([A-Za-z0-9]+)")*$
>
> >> For example the following would return true:
>
> >> "1","John"
> >> "2","Paul"
> >> "3","George"
> >> "4","Ringo"
>
> >> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> > The ? following [0-9] means that
> > "","John" will also be matched.
> > Also, the * before the $ means that
> > "1" will be matched
> > So at the very least you want
> > ^"[0-9]+"([,]\s?\"([A-Za-z0-9]+)")$
> > Since a $ means "the end of the line" and since a carriage return
> > signifies the end of a line, his should do. Or do you want to ensure
> > that there is a carriage return at theend, even if there is only one
> > line?
>
> Thank you for your response and for the pattern corrections.
>
> A trailing carriage return on the last line would be unnecessary and ignored
> if present. However, any preceding pairs must have a carriage return at the
> end of each line. Where in the pattern is this mandated?
>
> I don't have the opportunity to use regular expressions consistency, but I
> am anxious to learn the syntax and am grateful for your instruction.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

If you are treating each line as a separate string, then the $ will
indicate this. If you are treating all the lines as a single string
then I need to ask, is it only a carriage return that you will have at
the end of each line and all you want to check for? Sometimes lines
can be ended by a carriage return and a new line (\r\n) \nd sometimes
by a new line only (\n). It is unusual for a line to have only a
carriage return on its own (\r) as, on older printers, this would lead
to the next line overtyping the previous one.

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