What would the regex be to detect this string?

Question

I need to determine if a given string has the sequence dash-alpha-alpha-dash.

Example strings:

114888-ZV-209897
409-II-224858
86296-MO-184080
2459-ND-217906

What would be the the regex to determine that?

I'm using Ruby 1.9.3, FWIW.

By "alpha", do you mean uppercase ASCII letters? I.e., no such weird stuff as Ö or É? — Tim Pietzcker, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 10:18
This is a very elementary question. Did you search for an answer? What have you tried? What did you get as results? — the Tin Man, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 10:19
@theTinMan If there's a duplicate question here on SO, feel free to mark this as such and redirect to the duplicate. I didn't find it, but it's not exactly easy to search for this thing. — Shpigford, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 10:21
It's easy to figure out reading the documentation. ruby-doc.org/core-2.0/Regexp.html — the Tin Man, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 10:26

Tim Pietzcker · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-13 10:17:39Z

2

if subject =~ /-[A-Z]{2}-/
    # Successful match
else
    # Match attempt failed
end

That [A-Z] thingy is a character class.

answered Jun 13, 2013 at 10:17

Tim Pietzcker

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the Tin Man · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-13 10:34:34Z

2

It's a simple pattern:

/-[A-Z]{2}-/

will do it.

For instance:

"114888-ZV-209897"[/-[A-Z]{2}-/]
=> "-ZV-"

So use:

if  "114888-ZV-209897"[/-[A-Z]{2}-/] ...

answered Jun 13, 2013 at 10:22

the Tin Man

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2 Answers 2