Laravel doesn't recognize RegEx containing special character | or ]

Question

I'm trying to check if a sentence contains the special character | or ] using Laravel/Lumen validation in the controller like below:

'to_address' => 'required|max:200|regex:/^[^(|]~`!%^&*=};:?><’)]*$/',

If I user this validation on my controller, I'm getting the following error

{
    "error": "preg_match(): No ending delimiter '/' found"
}

Without | and ] the validation is working correctly.

See the **Note** in https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/validation#rule-regex — apokryfos, Nov 15 '18 at 07:11
No, I'm getting the same error, I'm using the version of "laravel/lumen-framework": "5.7.*", — nifCody, Nov 15 '18 at 09:28

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 15 '18 at 06:22

2

Usually array of rules fixes this problem.

'to_address' => ['required', 'max:200', 'regex:/^[^(|]~`!%^&*=};:?><’)]*$/'],

answered Nov 15 '18 at 06:22

IndianCoding

getting same error for the special character ] the pipe character is fixed – nifCody Nov 15 '18 at 09:44
You have an error in regular expression: "[" - 1 time, "]" - 2 times. Maybe, you need to backslash one of "]". – IndianCoding Nov 15 '18 at 10:41
fixed as like this `'to_address' => ['required', 'max:200', 'regex:/^[^(|\\]~`!%^&*=};:?><’)]*$/'],` – nifCody Nov 15 '18 at 10:43

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 15 '18 at 05:04

Both | and ] are special characters in regular expressions, so you need to escape them with the \ character:

'to_address' => 'required|max:200|regex:/^[^(\|\]~`!%^&*=};:?><’)]*$/',

If the pipe is supposed to be an OR, then you will need to use an array, as mentioned in Laravel preg_match(): No ending delimiter '/' found

Further reading:

2 Answers2