regex - whitespaces? 1

[ScaryEders]

i've been using:

ereg('^[a-zA-Z0-9]{3,23}$', $_POST['password'])

to check that a password only contains letters and numbers, but how do i make whitespaces OK as well?

i saw \s is meant to in a regex meant to mean a whitspace, so i tried [a-zA-Z0-9\s] but it thinks its a backslash and an s.

any help much appreciated,

ed.

 

[jemminger]

try a literal space, otherwise tabs could be allowed:

 ereg('^[a-zA-Z0-9[highlight] [/highlight]]{3,23}$', $_POST['password'])

-jeff

http://www.jeffemminger.com

try { succeed(); } catch(E) { tryAgain(); } finally { rtfm(); }
i like your sleeves...they're real big

 

[aschi666]

this is because u use the metacharacter \s in a character-class, where it has not the same meaning...

__________________________________________
a programmer is a tool that converts coffee into code...
aschi666, sthcomputing.de

 

[kehers]

what about trying something like [a-zA-Z0-9[:space:]] or say [[:alnum:][:space:]]. alnum represents numbers and alphabets. there is this other one : [rint:] .it allows alnums, spaces but also allows punctuation which i doubt u want.
anyway, i hope d above helps

 

[ScaryEders]

thanks for ur help!

specially jemminger - why didn't i think of literal spaces?

sometimes with me, the obvious is the least obvious . . .

ed.

 

[DRJ478]

Final note:
I always prefer PCRE to the POSIX kind of regex. The PHP manual states

Tip: PHP also supports regular expressions using a Perl-compatible syntax using the PCRE functions. Those functions support non-greedy matching, assertions, conditional subpatterns, and a number of other features not supported by the POSIX-extended regular expression syntax.