Extended Regular Expressions (RegEx) provide rich functionality to create input masks. A mask is a string that can consist of meta-characters, quantifiers and special characters.
ATS Inspect utilizes DevExpress which doesn't use the full set of available Extended Regular Expressions. The available expressions are listed below. You can also check for updates at the DevExpress website.
DevExpress website: Extended Regular Expressions
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Character |
Description |
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. |
Matches any character. |
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[aeiou] |
Matches any single character included in the specified set of characters. This character cannot be used with special characters (e.g. '\w', '\d'). |
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[^aeiou] |
Matches any single character, which is not included in the specified set of characters. This character cannot be used with special characters (e.g. '\w', '\d'). |
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[0-9a-fA-F] |
Use of a hyphen (– ) allows specification of contiguous character ranges. This character cannot be used with special characters (e.g. '\w', '\d'). |
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\w |
Matches any word character. |
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\W |
Matches any non-word character. |
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\d |
Matches any decimal digit. Same as [0-9] . |
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\D |
Matches any non-digit. Same as [^0-9] . |
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\s |
Matches any white-space character (space, tab, etc.). |
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\S |
Matches any non-white-space character. |
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\x20 |
Matches an ASCII character using hexadecimal representation (exactly two digits). |
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\u0020 |
Matches a Unicode character using hexadecimal representation (exactly four digits). |
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\p{unicodeCategoryName } |
Matches any character from the specified Unicode character category. The full and short names of common Unicode categories are listed below. Letter ( L ) - any letter. UppercaseLetter ( Lu ) - an uppercase letter. Entered characters are converted to uppercase. LowercaseLetter ( Ll ) - a lowercase letter. Entered characters are converted to lowercase. Number ( N ) - any number. Symbol ( S ) - a mathematical symbol, currency symbol, or a modifier symbol. Punctuation ( P ) - any punctuation mark. Separator ( Z ) - any separator. |
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\P{unicodeCategoryName } |
Matches any character that is not included in the specified Unicode character category. This is the inversion of the "\p{unicodeCategoryName}" specifier. |
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\R. |
Matches the decimal separator specified by the System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo.NumberDecimalSeparator property of the current culture. |
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\R: |
Matches the time separator specified by the System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo.TimeSeparator property of the current culture. |
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\R/ |
Matches the time separator specified by the System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator property of the current culture. |
|
\R{name } |
Where name is one of the following: DateSeparator - Matches the date separator (the same as "\R/") TimeSeparator - Matches the time separator (the same as "\R:") AbbreviatedDayNames - Matches one of the abbreviated names of the days according to the current culture. AbbreviatedMonthNames - Matches one of the abbreviated names of the months according to the current culture. AMDesignator - Matches the string designator for hours that are "ante meridian" (before noon). DayNames - Matches one of the full names of the days according to the current culture. MonthNames - Matches one of the full names of the months according to the current culture. PMDesignator - Matches the string designator for hours that are "post meridian" (after noon). NumberDecimalSeparator - Matches the string used as the decimal separator in numeric values (the same as "\R."). CurrencyDecimalSeparator - Matches the string used as the decimal separator in currency values. CurrencySymbol - Matches the string used as the currency symbol. NumberPattern - Matches any numeric value in the format specified by the current culture. If the number of decimal digits to use in numeric values is set to 0, the mask matches only integer values. Otherwise, the mask matches real values. CurrencyPattern - Matches any currency value in the format specified by the current culture (without the currency symbol). If the number of decimal digits to use in currency values is set to 0, the mask matches only integer values. Otherwise, the mask matches real values. |
|
\AnyChar |
Matches the specified character. For instance, the '\*' mask string can be used to insert the '*' character as a literal, the '\\' string inserts the '\' symbol as a literal, etc. |
These are special characters which denote the number of repetitions for the preceding character. See the table below for the list of qualifiers and their descriptions.
|
Quantifier |
Description |
Samples |
|
* |
Specifies zero or more matches. |
The "\w*" mask matches a string consisting of zero or more letter characters. It's equivalent to the "\w{0,}" mask. |
|
+ |
Specifies one or more matches. |
The "\w+" mask matches a string consisting of one or more letter characters. It's equivalent to the "\w{1,}" mask. |
|
? |
Specifies zero or one matches. |
The "\w?" mask matches zero or one letter character. It's equivalent to the "\w{0,1}" mask. |
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{n } |
Specifies exactly n matches. |
The "\d{4}" mask matches exactly four digits. |
|
{n ,} |
Specifies at least n matches. |
The "\d{2,}" mask matches two or more digits. |
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{n , m } |
Specifies at least n, but no more than m matches. |
The "\d{1,3}" mask matches either one, or two, or three digits. |
The following table lists the available special characters that implement the grouping feature and alternation.
|
Character |
Description |
Samples |
|
| |
Alternation symbol. This can be used to implement a choice between two or more alternatives. |
The "1|2|3" mask matches either "1" or "2" or "3". |
|
The "abc|123" mask matches either "abc" or "123". |
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The "\d{2}|\p{L}{2}" mask matches either two digits or two letters. |
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() |
Grouping. You can use parentheses to create sub-expressions or to limit the scope of the alternation. |
The "(an|ba)t" mask matches either "ant" or "bat". |
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The "(net)+" mask matches "net", "netnet", "netnetnet",.. strings. Compare with the "net+" mask, which matches the "net", "nett", "nettt",.. strings. |
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The "(0|1)+" mask matches a string of indeterminate length consisting of "0" and "1". |
Any other character (which is not a meta-character, a quantifier, nor a special character) matches itself. For instance, if the "a" character appears in the mask, it matches the "a" character.
Again, if a specific character (even a meta-character, quantifier, or special character) is preceded by a backslash (for example, "\[", "\*"), this expression matches the specified character ("[" and "*").
Below is a list of the operators in a decreasing order of precedence.
Escaped Characters "\AnyCharacter"; Bracket Expressions "[...]"
Grouping "(...)"
Quantifiers "...*", "...+", "...?", "{...}"
Concatenation
Alternation "...|..."
\d+(\R.\d{0,2})?
Below are examples of valid values.
190
190.44
The "\d+" expression indicates that any number of decimal digits can be entered before the decimal point. The "\R." meta-character is used to represent the decimal point. The "\d{0,2}" expression matches 0, 1 or 2 digits of the fractional part. The "(...)?" mask indicates that the expression in the brackets can appear only once or not at all during editing.
(1?[1-9])|([12][0-4])
This mask consists of two parts: (1?[1-9]) and ([12][0-4]), separated by the alternation symbol. The first part matches numbers in the ranges of 1-9 and 11-19. The second part matches numbers in the ranges of 10-14 and 20-24.
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