How to use regular expressions to validate responses

Regular Expressions must start and finish with a forward slash ("/"), and are entered into the Validation field under the General Options panel for a question:


You can find a good library of regular expressions at http://regexlib.com. These patterns will almost all work if surrounded with the forward slash.

To test your regex you can use this regex tester.

Examples (note that these are all one line):

Important: Regular Expressions in conditions

Note that when using regular expressions in the condition editor, do NOT include the beginning and ending slash.

Email validation

/^(\w[-._+\w]*\w@\w[-._\w]*\w\.\w{2,3})$/

Postcodes

Canadian postcodes
/^[a-zA-Z]\d{1}[a-zA-Z](\-| |)\d{1}[a-zA-Z]\d{1}$/

US postal codes

/^[0-9]{5}([- /]?[0-9]{4})?$/

Phone numbers

Canadian and US phone numbers

/^(?:\([2-9]\d{2}\)\ ?|[2-9]\d{2}(?:\-?|\ ?))[2-9]\d{2}[- ]?\d{4}$/

or

/^[\(\)\.\- ]{0,}[0-9]{3}[\(\)\.\- ]{0,}[0-9]{3}[\(\)\.\- ]{0,}[0-9]{4}[\(\)\.\- ]{0,}$/

This second option will match all phone Canadian and US phone numbers that include non-digit symbols including

 . ( ) - (space)

This will allow you to match phone numbers which resemble below.

  • (555)555 5555
  • 555.555.5555
  • 555 555 5555
  • (555)-555-5555
  • 555-555-5555
  • 555555555

Age validation

Example: Age 20-99

/([2-9][0-9])/


Example: Age 18-35

/(1[8-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-5])/


Example: Age 19-65

^(1[8-9]|[2-5][0-9]|6[0-5])$

Number validation

Numbers from 1 to 99999

/^([1-9]|[1-9][0-9]|[1-9][0-9][0-9]|[1-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]|[1-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$/
/^[1-9][0-9]{0,4}$/ does the same as above but should run a little faster

Numbers from 1 to 999, 1.000 to 999.999 to 999.999.999

/^[1-9][0-9]{0,2}(?:\.[0-9]{3}){0,2}$/

Accepts numbers from 1 to 999, 1.000 to 999.999 to 999.999.999 but rejects numbers like 999.1.1 , 94.22.22, 999.1.22, 999.11.1, 999.1.333

Number validation with optional decimal (for price)

Accepts numbers from 0 to 199, with 2 decimal optional:

/^([1][0-9][0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|[0-9])((\.)[0-9][0-9])?$/


Forces two decimal points and accepts numbers from 1.00 to 999,999,999.00 with an optional comma delimiting thousands/millions including all of the following: 1.00, 1,000.00, 12,345.67, 12345,02, 123,456,468.00, 1234566.00, 123456789.00 but not 1,23.00, 12,3.4 or 1234,43.04

/^[1-9][0-9]{0,2}(?:,?[0-9]{3}){0,3}\.[0-9]{2}$/


Same as above but the two decimal points are optional:

/^[1-9][0-9]{0,2}(?:,?[0-9]{3}){0,3}(?:\.[0-9]{2})?$/

Month (1-12)

If you want to ask for the month a person was born you can validate the input as follows:

/^[0]*[1-9]$|^[0]*1[0-2]$/

Minimum width (set to 3 in this example)

/^.{3,}$/

Currency

Canadian and US currency (dollar sign and cents optional)

/^\$?\d+(\.(\d{2}]]?$/


Validate score

1-10

/^[1-9]{1}$|^10$/

1-100

/^[1-9]?[0-9]{1}$|^100$/

Text validation

Currently multiple short text doesn't support minimum or maximum answers. One way around this is to use a long free text type question with a regular expression.

The following test for at least one word per line for at least 3 lines and no more than 10 lines.

/(?:[^,.;:?!& \n\r]+(?: [^,.;:?!& \n\r]+)*)(?:[,.;:?!& \n\r]?(?:\n|\r|\n\r|\r\n)(?:[^,.;:?!& \n\r]+(?: [^,.;:?!& \n\r]+)*)){2,10}/is

If you wanted, say five words per line you could change the first and last star/asterisk to {4,} e.g.

/(?:[^,.;:?!& \n\r]+(?: [^,.;:?!& \n\r]+){4,})(?:[,.;:?!& \n\r]?(?:\n|\r|\n\r|\r\n)(?:[^,.;:?!& \n\r]+(?: [^,.;:?!& \n\r]+){4,})){2,10}/is

If you wanted one or more words per line on between 1 and 5 lines, you can change the content of the last curley braces to 0,4 (note you use 0 because you're already matching the first line).

/(?:[^,.;:?!& \n\r]+(?: [^,.;:?!& \n\r]+)*)(?:[,.;:?!& \n\r]?(?:\n|\r|\n\r|\r\n)(?:[^,.;:?!& \n\r]+(?: [^,.;:?!& \n\r]+)*)){0,4}/is

Word count

The following restricts the number of words allowed to a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 200

/^[-\w]+(?:\W+[-\w]+){0,199}\W*$/
To increase the minimum change the zero part of {0,199}

To increase or decrease the maximum change the "199" part of {0,199}

Time validation

There are a number of ways of writing time formats. Some of the possible options are 12 hour or 24 hour, with seconds or without. Although it is an option to use the date question type (it can also capture time) you can use "short free text" with one of the validation regular expressions below:

The following three validation strings test for 24 hour time (in order of appearences) without seconds, with optional seconds lastly with seconds required.

/^(?:[01][0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9]$/
/^(?:[01][0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9](?::[0-5][0-9])?$/
/^(?:[01][0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9]$/


The following three match 12 hour time, as above with seconds, optional seconds and with seconds required

/^(?">00:[0-5][0-9] (?:am|AM)|(?:0[1-9]|1[01]):[0-5][0-9] (?:[ap]m|[AP]M)|12:[0-5][0-9] (?:pm|PM))$/
/^(?:00:[0-5][0-9](?::[0-5][0-9])? (?:am|AM)|(?:0[1-9]|1[01]):[0-5][0-9](?::[0-5][0-9])? (?:[ap]m|[AP]M)|12:[0-5][0-9](?::[0-5][0-9])? (?:pm|PM))$/
/^(?:00:[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9] (?:am|AM)|(?:0[1-9]|1[01]):[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9] (?:[ap]m|[AP]M)|12:[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9] (?:pm|PM))$/


The following three match either 12 or 24 hour time as above with seconds, optional seconds and with seconds required

/^(?:(?:00:[0-5][0-9] (?:am|AM)|(?:0[1-9]|1[01]):[0-5][0-9] (?:[ap]m|[AP]M)|12:[0-5][0-9] (?:pm|PM))|(?:[01][0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9])$/
/^(?:(?:00:[0-5][0-9](?[0-5][0-9])? (?:am|AM)|(?:0[1-9]|1[01]):[0-5][0-9](?[0-5][0-9])? (?:[ap]m|[AP]M)|12:[0-5][0-9](?[0-5][0-9])? (?:pm|PM))|(?:[01][0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9](?[0-5][0-9])?)$/
/^(?:(?:00:[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9] (?:am|AM)|(?:0[1-9]|1[01]):[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9] (?:[ap]m|[AP]M)|12:[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9] (?:pm|PM))|(?:[01][0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9]:[0-5][0-9])$/

Canadian Provinces

To validate for one state use the following (example is Ontario):

  • ON uppercase only =
    /^(ON)$/
  • on lowercase only =
    /^(on)$/
  • ON upper or lowercase =
    /^([O|o][N|n])$/

Text / Profanity Filter

To filter profanity words from an answer:

/^(?i)((?!\bENTERPROFANITYHERE\b).)*$(?-i)/

Replace "ENTERPROFANITYHERE" with your bad word.

The \b will allow passing of words such as "assassination" & "hello" if you enter "ass" or "hell" as your profanity word. This also works if you are trying to omit other words, names etc. from answers.

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