Regex to skip certain characters

Question

I want to write a Regex which would skip characters like < & >. Reason

Now, to represent this I came across this [^<>] and tried using it in an console application, but it does not work.

[^<>]

Debuggex Demo

string value = "shubh<";
string regEx = "[^<>]";
Regex rx = new Regex(regEx);

if (rx.IsMatch(value))
{
    Console.WriteLine("Pass");
}
else { Console.WriteLine("Fail"); }
Console.ReadLine();

The string 'shubh<' should get failed, but I am not sure why it passes the match. Am I doing something rubbish?

Answer 1

From Regex.IsMatch Method (String):

Indicates whether the regular expression specified in the Regex constructor finds a match in a specified input string.

[^<>] is found in shubh< (the s, the h, etc.).

You need to use the ^ and $ anchors:

Regex rx = new Regex("^[^<>]*$");
if (rx.IsMatch(value)) {
    Console.WriteLine("Pass");
} else {
    Console.WriteLine("Fail");
}

---

Another solution is to check if < or > is contained:

Regex rx = new Regex("[<>]");
if (rx.IsMatch(value)) {
    Console.WriteLine("Fail");
} else {
    Console.WriteLine("Pass");
}