Validate regex¤
Description¤
The validateRegex plugin validates whether all values match a given regular expression.
This plugin is a validation transformer plugin. This means that if the regular expression does not match the input value, it will fail with a validation exception.
Notes on regular expressions¤
The most commonly used examples of regular expressions are "\\s*" for representing whitespace characters, [^0-9]*
for numbers, and [a-z]* for the usual English characters between a and z. The star (*) represents an arbitrary
number of occurrences (zero included), whereas the plus sign (+) indicates a strictly positive number of occurrences
(zero excluded).
An uppercase version of the predefined character classes means negation, such as "\\S*" for non-whitespace
characters, or "\\D*" for non-digits.
Similarly, the hat sign ^ can be used for negating (arbitrary) character classes, such as [^xyz] for any character
except x, y or z.
Attention: Slashes in regular expressions have to be escaped, e.g. instead of \s we need to escape it as \\s.
Note for advanced users¤
A compilation of the available constructs for building regular expressions is available in the
API of the Java Pattern.
Relation to other plugins¤
Additionally to the validateRegex plugin, there are related plugins such as ifMatchesRegex, regexReplace and
regexExtract.
The distinctive feature of each of these plugins lies in what happens whenever the regular expression
matches the input value(s): the validateRegex plugin is used for validating the input, ifMatchesRegex is useful
for conditionally distinguishing which input to take, regexReplace replaces all occurrences, and regexExtract
extracts them.
Examples¤
Notation: List of values are represented via square brackets. Example: [first, second] represents a list of two values “first” and “second”.
Example 1:
-
Parameters
- regex:
\w*
- regex:
-
Input values:
[TestValue123]
-
Returns:
[TestValue123]
Example 2:
-
Parameters
- regex:
[a-d]*
- regex:
-
Input values:
[abcd]
-
Returns:
[abcd]
Example 3:
-
Parameters
- regex:
Prefix \w\w\w
- regex:
-
Input values:
[Prefix abc]
-
Returns:
[Prefix abc]
Example 4:
-
Parameters
- regex:
\w*
- regex:
-
Input values:
[(TestValue123)]
-
Returns:
[] - Throws error:
ValidationException
Example 5:
-
Parameters
- regex:
[a-d]*
- regex:
-
Input values:
[abcde]
-
Returns:
[] - Throws error:
ValidationException
Example 6:
-
Parameters
- regex:
Prefix \w\w\w
- regex:
-
Input values:
[Prefixabc]
-
Returns:
[] - Throws error:
ValidationException
Parameter¤
Regex¤
regular expression
- ID:
regex - Datatype:
string - Default Value:
\w*
Advanced Parameter¤
None