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
• email
• 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:

name@domain.top-level-domain

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