How to validade international alphabetic characters?

[lopes_andre]

Hi,

 

I need to validate international alphabetic characters.

 

I need to get TRUE with characters like "ç", "é" and others, but is not working. How can I validate characters with accents? I have this:

 

function alpha($str)
{
return ( ! preg_match("/^([*A-Za-zá-úÁ=Ú.\s*])+$/i", $str)) ? FALSE : TRUE;
}

 

Someone can give me a clue on how to validate characters with accents?

 

Best Regards,

[Mchl]

Try \w

[lopes_andre]

Hi thanks for the reply.

 

Can you explain more detailed?

 

 

Best Regards,

 

[Mchl]

Just like \s matches any white space, \w matches any 'word' character. This means all letters and 0-9

 

var_dump(preg_match('/\w/','Á'));  // int(1)

[salathe]

\w is not to be relied on for this kind of problem as precisely what it matches varies between different locales in use.  I'm sure there have been threads discussing exactly that topic which might be worth a search.

 

By "international alphabetic characters" do you mean absolutely any letter character at all? If so then \pL (make sure to use the u modifier) will likely be sufficient.  If you only want accented latin characters, then \pL would be overkill. So it depends what precisely you are wanting to match.

[lopes_andre]

Hi,

 

I'm  trying to get this working, but without success.

 

I'm trying to validade "André" as TRUE, but gives me FALSE

 

Here is the code:

 

function alpha_international($str){
	return ( ! preg_match("/^[\pL]+$/", $str)) ? FALSE : TRUE;
} 

 

Someone can give me a clue?

 

Best Regards,

 

[salathe]

I guess you missed the side-comment in my post (make sure to use the u modifier) as that is what is missing. With that appended to your regex pattern, you're good to go.

[lopes_andre]

Thanks for the reply. How can I put the "u" modifier?

 

Best Regards,

 

[Mchl]

/[\pL]+/ seems to be working, but really I've no experience with unicode regex to say how good it is.

 

BTW:

return ( ! preg_match($pattern, $str)) ? FALSE : TRUE;

 

and

return (bool)preg_match($pattern, $str);

 

do same thing

 

 

[lopes_andre]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Now it is OK if I write "André" but gives me OK also if I write "André-", "-" is not from the alphabet. How can I solve this?

 

Best Regards,

[salathe]

Here's how I would do it, compare the function with yours to see the differences.

 

function alpha_international($subject) {
    return (bool) preg_match('/^\pL+$/Du', $subject);
}

[lopes_andre]

Here's how I would do it, compare the function with yours to see the differences.

 

function alpha_international($subject) {
    return (bool) preg_match('/^\pL+$/Du', $subject);
}

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

"André" is now OK. I need also to recognize Spaces as OK, to "André Lopes" be recognized as OK.

 

Sorry for my questions. I know I need to study Regex...

 

Best Regards,

[salathe]

Is there anything other than spaces that you need to allow? Just one space, new lines, tabs?

[lopes_andre]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the reply. I only need Spaces between words. Thanks for your patience.

 

Best Regards,

[salathe]

Spaces plural or just one, or?.. Sorry if this sounds like 20 questions but you need to be precise.

 

This will match multiple words (at least one word; consisting only of 'letters') separated by a single space:

 

/^\pL+(?: \pL+)*$/Du

[lopes_andre]

Spaces plural or just one, or?.. Sorry if this sounds like 20 questions but you need to be precise.

 

This will match multiple words (at least one word; consisting only of 'letters') separated by a single space:

 

/^\pL+(?: \pL+)*$/Du

 

Hi salathe,

 

No more needed. It does everything I need.

 

Thanks for your help and patience.

 

Best Regards,