What's wrong with this regex (VBScript/Javascript flavor)

Posted by OtherMichael on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by OtherMichael
Published on 2010-05-20T16:16:51Z Indexed on 2010/05/20 16:30 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 470

Filed under:

regex

|

vbscript

|

JavaScript

|

vba

|

vb6

I'm trying to run a regular expression in VBA code that uses Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions 5.5 (should be the same as JavaScript regex)

regex: ^[0-9A-Z]?[0-9A-Z]{3}[A-Z]?([0-9A-Z]{6})-?([0-9])?$
input: X123A1234567
match: 123456

the six characters I'm interested in give a good match of 123456, ignoring the last (check) digit. Perfect. (The check digit is captured, but it's not a major concern to me).

But when BOTH the optional portions are gone (they are optional) the match grabs the last digit

GOOD input: 123A1234567
match: 123456

Leave in the optional middle alpha, take out the optional leading alpha, and we still get the good match of 123456

GOOD input: X1231234567
match: 123456

Leave in the optional leading alpha, take out the middle optional alpha, and we still get a good match of 123456

BAD input: 1231234567
match: 234567

Take out BOTH optional alphas, and we get a bad match of 234567

Have a looksee @ the regex testers on http://www.regular-expressions.info/javascriptexample.html or http://www.regular-expressions.info/vbscriptexample.html

What am I missing, here? How can I get the regex to ignore the last digit when both optional alphas are missing? The regex is used to feed a lookup system, so that no matter what format the input data, we can match to a complete value.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about regex

Find multiple regex in each line and skip result if one of the regex doesn't match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a list of variables: variables = ['VariableA', 'VariableB','VariableC'] which I'm going to search for, line by line ifile = open("temp.txt",'r') d = {} match = zeros(len(variables)) for line in ifile: emptyCells=0 for i in range(len(variables)): regex = r'('+variables[i]+r')[:|=|\(](-… >>> More
OWASP Regex Repository: Is this regex correct?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was looking at the regular expression for validating various data types from the (OWASP Regex Repository). One of the regular expressions in there is called safetext and looks like: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\s.\-]+$ My first question is: Is this regular expression correct? complementary question If this… >>> More
Make a Perl-style regex interpreter behave like a basic or extended regex interpreter

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a tool to help students learn regular expressions. I will probably be writing it in Java. The idea is this: the student types in a regular expression and the tool shows which parts of a text will get matched by the regex. Simple enough. But I want to support several different regex… >>> More
JS regex isn't matching, even thought it works with a regex tester

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm writing a piece of client-side javascript code that takes a function and finds the derivative of it, however, the regex that's supposed to match with the power rule fails to work in the context of the javascript program, even though it sucessfully matches when it's used with an independent regex… >>> More
c# RegEx with "|"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to be able to check for a pattern with | in them. For example an expression like d*|*t should return true for a string like "dtest|test". I'm no regex hero so I just tried a couple of things, like: Regex Pattern = new Regex("s*\|*d"); //unable to build because of single backslash Regex Pattern… >>> More

Related posts about vbscript

Associate mount points with local disks in VBscript / WMI

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a VBscript that outputs various config items about a system. Both hardware and software. I can output disks and their associated partitions. I can output mount points. I do not seem to be able to associate a mount point with a local disk (where it actually is a local disk). I need to be able… >>> More
Any other preprocessor directives in VBScript/Classic ASP?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The only pre-process directive that I know about in VBScript / Classic ASP is the #include. I don't know if that is the official name but I'm basically looking for code that can execute code or other instructions before the general VBScript. Are there any other such directives in VBScript? Such as… >>> More
how to pass and access command line arguments in VBscript

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
how to pass and access command line arguments in VBscript >>> More
[OT] : Windows Activation, en masse

as seen on SQL Blog - Search for 'SQL Blog'
This weekend I discovered a minor issue in one of my virtual environments. I had built out 100 VMs based on a Hyper-V template, but I forgot to activate the original source before creating the template, so all of the machines were suddenly out of compliance. While easy enough on a one- or two-machine… >>> More
Retrieve user details from Active Directory using SID

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, How can I find a user in my AD when I have his/her SID. I don't want to rely on other attributes, since I am trying to detect changes to these. Example: I get a message about a change to user record containing: Message: User Account Changed: Target Account Name: test12 Target… >>> More