In a growing number of locations in FlexMail and FlexStream you can now use regular expressions.
This page contains a collection of examples of often used patterns. You can use these examples as
they are or modify them to suit your needs.
The panel at the right side provides some links to useful tools and sites that can help you in
understanding and building regular expressions.
Examples
Below, you will find many example patterns that you can use for and adapt to your own purposes.
Filter a number that is 5 or 6 digits long
| Expression: |
\d{5,6} |
| Description: |
Matches a number of 5 or 6 digits. In {x,y}, x specifies the minimum and y
specified the maximum number of occurances of a digit (\d). |
| Matches: |
12345 | 123456 |
| Non-matches: |
1234 | 1234567 |
Find a number after a specific text
| Expression: |
(?<=Invoice Number:\s*)\d+ |
| Description: |
'(?<= abcd)' is what is called a positive Lookbehind. It searches for 'Invoice Number:' followed by
a number of white spaces (spaces, tabs, etc) without making it part of the match. '\d+' matches
any number of digites after 'Invoice number:' |
| Matches: |
'12345' in 'Invoice Number: 12345' |
| Non-matches: |
'Account: 12345' |
Find a number before a specific text
| Expression: |
\d+\.\d{2}(?=\s*DISCOUNT) |
| Description: |
'(?= abcd)' is what is called a positive Lookahead. It searches for 'DISCOUNT' preceded by
a number of white spaces (spaces, tabs, etc) without making it part of the match. '\d+\.\d{2}'
matches a number with 2 decimals. |
| Matches: |
'1.03' in '1.03 DISCOUNT' |
| Non-matches: |
'123 DISCOUNT' | '1.03 OFF' |
Find a text between two texts
| Expression: |
(?<=My cow\s*).+(?=\s*gives milk) |
| Description: |
'(?<= abcd)' is what is called a positive Lookbehind. It searches for 'My cow:' followed by
a number of white spaces (spaces, tabs, etc) without making it part of the match. '(?= xyx)'
is a positive Lookahead, which searches for 'gives milk', again without making it part of the
match. '.+' matches all characters between 'My cow' and 'gives milk'. |
| Matches: |
'always' in 'My cow always gives milk' |
| Non-matches: |
'My goat always gives milk' | 'My cow always eats grass' |
Simple e-mail validator
| Expression: |
^\w+[\w-\.]*\@\w+((-\w+)|(\w*))\.[a-z]{2,3}$ |
| Description: |
Email validation. With this short expression you can validate for proper
email format. It's short and accurate. |
| Matches: |
bob-smith@foo.com | bob.smith@foo.com | bob_smith@foo.com |
| Non-matches: |
-smith@foo.com | .smith@foo.com | smith@foo_com |
Match last occurrence of a pattern
| Expression: |
foo(?!.*foo) |
| Description: |
Finds the last occurrance of a specific pattern in an area. The key to the solution is
a so called "negative lookahead". A lookahead doesn’t consume characters in the string,
but only asserts whether a match is possible or not. So if you wanted to extract the
last “foo” in the text “foo bar foo bar foo” your regex would look like 'foo(?!.*foo)' |
| Matches: |
Last 'foo' in 'foo bar foo bar foo' |
| Non-matches: |
bar dir get |
Find European Currency string
| Expression: |
^[€£]?\s*(([0-9]{1,3}\.([0-9]{3}\.)*[0-9]{3})|[0-9]+)(,[0-9]{2})?$ |
| Description: |
Matches currency input with or without thousand-separators, with or without decimals,
and with or without Pound or Euro-sign (plus spaces).
|
| Matches: |
€ 3.023.123,34 | 9.876.453 | 123456,78 |
| Non-matches: |
4.33.234,34 | $1,234 | abc |
Find US Currency string
| Expression: |
^\$?\s*(([0-9]{1,3},([0-9]{3},)*[0-9]{3})|[0-9]+)(\.[0-9]{2})?$ |
| Description: |
Matches currency input with or without commas, with or without decimals
and with or without $-sign (plus spaces).
|
| Matches: |
$3,023,123.34 | 9,876,453 | 123456.78 |
| Non-matches: |
4,33,234.34 | $1.234 | abc |
Find an US Address block in an area
| Expression: |
(.*\n){2,4}.*\,\s*[A-Z]{2}\s+\d{5}(-\d{4})? |
| Description: |
Looks for an US address in an area. The address must be at least be 3 lines of which
the last line sould consist of a city, followed by a comma (,) a state and a Zip5 or
of zip5+zip4. |
| Matches: |
Agnes Brunette
5622 N Audubon St
Spokane, WA 12345-6789
Agnes Brunette
Suite 100
5622 N Audubon St
Spokane,WA 12345
|
| Non-matches: |
Agnes Brunette
Spokane, WA 12345-6789
Agnes Brunette
5622 N Audubon St
Spokane
|
Validate US Postal Code
| Expression: |
(?!00000)(?:(?:\d{5})(?:[ -](?=\d))?(?:\d{4})?) |
| Description: |
Validate US zip codes. Matches all zip codes of exactly 5 digits except 00000. Optionally,
matches zip5+zip4 where zip5 is exactly 5 digits, zip4 is exactly 4 digits, and zip5 and
zip4 are, optionally, separated by a single space or hyphen. |
| Matches: |
12345 | 123456789 | 12345-6789 |
| Non-matches: |
12345- | 00000 | 00000-6789 |
Get City from US Address
| Expression: |
(?<=\n).*(?=\,.*$) |
| Description: |
Retrieves the city from the last line of an US address. The city must be at the last
line of the address and must be seperated by a comma from the state and post code. |
| Matches: |
Columbia in Columbia, SC 29210 |
| Non-matches: |
Columbia SC 29210 |
Get the state from a US Address
| Expression: |
(?<=\n*.*[,\s])([A-Z]{2})(?=(\s+\d{5}([\s-]+\d{4})?)?\s*$) |
| Description: |
Retrieves the (2 character) state abbreviation from a single address line or the last line of a US
address block. |
| Matches: |
SC in Columbia, SC 29210 |
| Non-matches: |
Columbia SC 29 |
Match extended characters
| Expression: |
[a-zA-ZÀ-ÿ0-9] |
| Description: |
Matches: 1)all characters from a to z (lowercase invariants); 2)all characters from
A to Z (uppercase invariants); 3) all characters from À to ÿ (all accent characers
including French accents in uppercase and lowercase); 4) all digits from 0 to 9.
|
| Matches: |
Frédérique |
| Non-matches: |
|