how to test string whether it contains special characters

[smartic]

how to test string whether it contains special characters
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please help dear experts on how to test string especially in username for example wheter it contains special charater and will return invalid ex for special characters (",',#,!,>,< ,?) except any letters for other languages ?

[Markus]

Try preg_match()

[php]
/*
- Using preg_match() we'll check for illegal characters:
*/
$_string = "lolzz#";
if(preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9_-]+/', $_string))
# checks for anything BUT: a through z (upper and lower case) 0 - 9, underscore _ and hypen -
{
echo "String contained illegal characters";
}
else
{
echo "String was legal.";
}
[/php]
If you don't understand, then check out the php.net website.

Regards

[ronverdonk]

how to test string whether it contains special characters
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

please help dear experts on how to test string especially in username for example wheter it contains special charater and will return invalid ex for special characters (",',#,!,>,< ,?) except any letters for other languages ?

Just my curiosity: by 'foreign letters' do you mean Unicode (UTF-8) characters or just <255 characters?

Ronald

[smartic]

if i use preg_match or ereg to catch special characters it deal with other languages like arabic as sepecial characters how can i deal with that?

[ronverdonk]

if i use preg_match or ereg to catch special characters it deal with other languages like arabic as sepecial characters how can i deal with that?

Now you are talking about Unicode characters. I.e. for arabic you would use an expression like (just an example)[php]$arabic=preg_ma tch('/[\x{600}-\x{6FF}]/u', $content)[/php]For searching Japanese circled numbers 1-9[php]preg_match('/[\x{2460}-\x{2468}]/u', $str);[/php]
I don't know enough of regular expressions and Unicode to say much more about it. So I hope someone schooled in Reg ex and Unicode can help you any further.

Ronald