regular expression validation

Hi Manuel,

i tried to apply the regularexpression validation in one of my forms, but I receive a strange behaviour.
I need a message textarea, so validated only for alphanumeric values and spaces.

My code is the following :
$form->AddInput(array(
"TYPE"=>"textarea",
"ID"=>"textarea_message",
"NAME"=>"textarea_message",
"COLS"=>80,
"ROWS"=>40,

"ValidateRegularExpression"=>array(

"^\s*[a-zA-Z,\s]+\s*$"
),
"ValidateRegularExpressionErrorMessage"=>array(

"The message area may only contain letters and digits."
),
"ValidateAsNotEmpty"=>1,
"ValidateAsNotEmptyErrorMessage"=>"It was not specified the message.",

"LABEL"=>"Submit your <u>m</u>essage",
"ACCESSKEY"=>"M"
));

All goes well client side, but on server side i always see a 'verify field' error message. I tried disabling the client side validation, but the error still remains.

What can you suggest?

Thanks
Paul

PHP POSIX regular expressions do not support \s . I think you have to enter "[ \t\n\r]" in the place of "\s".

Hi Manuel, thanks for your prompt reply.
Nevertheless, the validation doens't work.
I ahve enabled the server side validation only, but it gives me the same error too.


My regex is now:
"^[\t\n\r]*[a-zA-Z0-9]+[\t\n\r]*\$"

But it doesn't work.

What can i do?

Thanks a lot,

What exactly do you mean by "doesn't work"? What value is it accepting that it shouldn't? Or what value is it rejecting that it should accept?

Hi Manuel,
thanks for your patience.

The issue is simple: i am trying to make the class filter out all the the chars apart from alphanumeric chars + SPACES.
I made a regulare expression as above, since the field is a textarea type. I normally use that expression to filter chars and i have no problems.

The class throws no errors on the client side, but it doens't pass the server side validation. (it gives to me always the [Verify field ]on the right side of the field.
I cannot, for obvious reasons, disable the server side validation.

As far as the whitespaces is concerned, i think it the issue is not linked to the \s chars, since we tried putting the [:space:], which replaces all the carriage, tabs, etc... +regular whitespaces tab as you well know.

I think that the reason is that the regex is evaluated in a different way client side and server side.
It would be very useful if you could give me a solution for this. I think that your classes can be very useful to prevent XSS and CSRF attacks.


Thanks

I remind you the regex i use in the POSIX regex:
"^[\t\n\r]*[a-zA-Z0-9]+[\t\n\r]*\$"

Thanks,

Thomas Smithson

You have not told me what is the value in the input that you want to validate but it does not work as you expect.

Hi Manuel,
as I told you i am trying to make the class filter out all the the chars apart from alphanumeric chars + SPACES.
So, to allow only alphanumeric chars ([a-zA-Z0-9]) + SPACES.
The validation works on client side, but it's not working on the server side.

Thanks
Thomas Smithson

Please bear with me. I am asking you to give me an example of a value that you enter in the textarea input that is validated on the browser side with that regular expression, but not on the server side.

Hi Manuel, just EVERY word which contains a space