Format validation
Uses regular expressions to verify that the field value meets the required format. For example, if the format is set to alpha, then only alphabetic characters (a-z and/or A-Z) are allowed. A value such as abcd (all alphabetic characters) will pass validation; a value such as ab-cd (hyphen) or abc7 (number) will not.
To configure this validation, click Format Required and then select the appropriate format type:
Available format types are:
- alpha
- alphaExtended
- alphaExtendedSpaces
- alphaNumeric
- alphaNumericExtended
- i18nAlphaNumeric
- numeric
- numericReal
- phone
- phoneInternational
- zipCode
- zipCode+4
These format types are described in the following sections of the documentation.
alpha
To pass validation, the value must contain at least one alphabetic character (A-Z and/or a-z). Empty strings or strings containing any non-alphabetic characters (including numbers) will fail validation.
Regular expression (Python): ^[a-z]+$
Examples that pass validation
ABCDE
Abcde
abcde
Examples that fail validation
ABCD4
4abc
ab cde
ab*
alphaExtended
To pass validation, a value must contain at least one alphabetic character, dash (-), and/or single quote ('). Empty strings, or strings that contain non-alphabetic characters (including numbers or blank spaces) will fail validation.
Regular expression (Python): ^[a-zA-Z-']+$
Examples that pass validation
abcde
ABCDE
abc-d'e
Examples that fail validation
abc12
abc\_de
abc de
alphaExtendedSpaces
To pass validation, a value can contain only alphabetic characters, dashes (-), single quotes ('), and/or the following whitespace characters:
- Carriage return (\r)
- Newline (\n)
- Tab (\t)
- Form feed/page break (\f)
Regular expression (Python): ^[a-zA-Z-'\s]+$
Examples that pass validation
abcde
abc de
ab'c'd'e
Examples that fail validation
abcd*
abcd4
12345
alphaNumeric
To pass validation, a value must contain at least one alphabetic or numeric character. Empty strings, or any strings containing a non-alphanumeric character, will fail validation.
Regular expression (Python): ^[a-z0-9]+$
Examples that pass validation
abcde
12345
abc45
Examples that fail validation
Abc**
Abc de
&bcde
alphaNumericExtended
To pass validation, a value must contain at least two alphanumeric characters.
In addition to alphabetic and numeric characters, dashes (-), underscores (_), and periods (.) can be used as long as these characters don’t appear at the beginning or the end of the string.
Regular expression (Python): ^[a-z][-a-z0-9\s\_.]*[a-z0-9]$
Examples that pass validation
abcde
abc de
abc123
12345
abc\_de
Examples that fail validation
abcd*
abcd-
a
123.45
-12345
email
To pass validation, a value must contain an email address that uses the following format:
For example, karim.nafir@mail.com passes the validation test; karim.nafir@mail does not.
Note that this validation only checks the formatting of the string; it does not attempt to determine whether the supplied email address is a real email address.
Regular expression (Python): ^.+@(?:[^.]+.)+(?:[^.]{2,})$
Examples that pass validation
karimnafir@mail.com
karim.nafir@mail.com
karim.nafir@mail.example.org
Examples that fail validation
karim.nafir
karim.nafir@mail
i18nAlphaNumeric
To pass validation, a value must contain only alphanumeric characters (including alphabetic characters, such as é, that include an accent). Any other character, including numeric characters or blank spaces, results in a validation failure.
Regular expression (Python): ^[^-\s^`~!@#$%^&*()_=+[{]}|;:‘“,<.>/?]+$
Examples that pass validation
abcde
12345
abc45
àbcdé
Examples that fail validation
abc de
abc-de
12345
abcde!
numeric
To pass validation, a value can only contain numbers. A string with any non-numeric characters will fail validation.
Regular expression (Python): ^(\d+)$
Examples that pass validation
12345
Examples that fail validation
abcde
1234a
123.45
numericReal
To pass validation, a value can contain only real numbers; this includes negative numbers and decimal values.
Regular expression (Python): ^(\d+.?\d|.\d+|-\d+.?\d|-.\d+)$
Examples that pass validation
1234
12.34
.1234
-1234
-12.34
-.1234
Examples that fail validation
12/345
12 345
1234a
1234%
phone
To pass validation, a value must be formatted as a phone number, including area code. Certain characters – such as dashes, parentheses, and periods – can be used as long as they are used in a standard phone number format. For example, (123)-456-789, with the parentheses around the area code, is allowed; 123-(456)-7890 is not. Note that country codes are not allowed either. If you need to use country codes (e.g., 1-123-456-7890) then use the phoneInternational format.
Regular expression (Python): ^(?([0-9]{3}))?[-. ]?([0-9]{3})[-. ]?([0-9]{4})$
Examples that pass validation
(123)-456-7890
(123).456.7890
(123) 456 7890
123-456-7890
123.456.7890
123 456 7890
Examples that fail validation
456-7890
123/456/7890
(123)-(456-7890)
phoneInternational
To pass validation, a value must be formatted as a phone number, including area code. Certain characters – such as dashes, parentheses, and periods – can be used as long as they are employed in a standard phone number format. For example, (123)-456-789, with the parentheses around the area code, is allowed; 123-(456)-7890 is not. That's because parentheses are usually not found in that location when specifying a phone number.
In addition, and unlike the phone format, you can also include an optional country code: 1-123-456-7890.
Regular expression (Python): ^(\d{1,4}[-. ]?)?(?([0-9]{3}))?[-. ]?([0-9]{3})[-. ]?([0-9]{4})$
Examples that pass validation
1-123-456-7890
1 123 456 7890
1(123)-456-7890
1.123.456.7890
123-456-7890
Examples that fail validation
456-7890
(1)-123-456-7890
zipCode
To pass validation, a value must contain exactly 5 numeric characters. Any value with a non-numeric character, or with any number of characters other than 5, will fail validation.
Regular expression (Python): ^\d{5}$
Examples that pass validation
12345
Examples that fail validation
1234
1234A
12 345
.12345
abcde
zipCode+4
To pass validation, a value must be formatted as a standard 5-character zip code (e.g., 97206) or as a 10-character “zip plus 4” zip code (e.g., 97206-5555). Any other format or any non-numeric character other than a dash (which must be the sixth character in the value) will result in a validation failure.
Regular expression (Python): ^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$
Examples that pass validation
12345
12345-6789
Examples that fail validation
1234
123456
12345-67
abcde
Updated over 2 years ago