RE: [PHP-WIN] preg_match

I'm not a regex expert, but can't you use a negated class if (preg_match ("/[^a-z]/i", $name)) { echo "has non alpha chars"; } else { echo "all alphas"; } sorry, didn't try the above code before sending. HTH, Doug | -----Original Message----- | From: James Duncan [mailto:jd@jamesduncan.co.uk] | Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 6:20 PM | To: php-windows@lists.php.net | Subject: [PHP-WIN] preg_match | | | Help, | | This is driving me mad and I know there must be a very | simple solution. I’m | trying to detect if my strings contain ONLY certain values. | For instance, I’ | m trying to limit my “$name” string to just a-z (case insensitive) | characters. I’m trying to do this with preg_match (unless | there is an easier | way). However, I’m failing badly. This is what I have so far: | | if (preg_match ("/[a-z]/i", $name)) | { | echo "string only contains characters ranging between a to z"; | } | else | { | echo "string contains characters outside of the a to z range"; | } | | This checks for the occurrence of any a-z characters in the | string. However, | want I require is for it to allow JUST those characters. At | the moment if | $name = “abc1” then True is returned (I want False returned | here because of | the “1”). I don’t know how to write this functionality in | preg_match format | :-( | | Please help | | Thanks | | James |