Codeigniter's regex match
codeigniter, php, regex, validation
Solution
Though there is no `regex_match()` method in CodeIgniter validation library, It's not listed in the CI User Guide.
Per @Limon's comment:
There is a bug in CodeIgniter with the pipe `|`, it breaks the regex.
CodeIgniter uses `|` as a separator between validate methods.
Therefore, to prevent from breaking the regex, you could create a callback method in your Controller to validate the input by matching the regex:
public function regex_check($str)
{
if (preg_match("/^(?:'[A-Za-z](([\._\-][A-Za-z0-9])|[A-Za-z0-9])*[a-z0-9_]*')$/", $str))
{
$this->form_validation->set_message('regex_check', 'The %s field is not valid!');
return FALSE;
}
else
{
return TRUE;
}
}
Then add the validation rule, as follows:
$this->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'Nombre de usuario', 'required|min_length[2]|max_length[15]|callback_regex_check|is_unique[user.username]');
Problem
I have this regular expression for validation in javascript: ``` /^(?:'[A-z](([\._\-][A-z0-9])|[A-z0-9])*[a-z0-9_]*')$/ ``` Now I want the same regular expression for the form validation using Codeigniter's form validation: ``` $this->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'Nombre de usuario', 'required|min_length[2]|max_length[15]|regex_match[/^[A-Z a-z 0-9 _ . \-]+$/]|is_unique[user.username]'); ``` the regex in that line is not equivalent to the one I mentioned. When trying to copy and paste same regex, It doesn't work. I know this is dumb i just can't seem to fully understand regular expressions.