validating a surname

chr15t0 · 06-19-2003, 06:57 PM

hey folks

I seem to have got myself into a tangle with a bit of regexp work.

I need an expression which can be used to validate a surname, ie it will allow a-zA-Z , single spaces, hypens (-), single quotes (')

such that the following are passed:

Jones
O'reilly
Langly-Smith
Van Schnee

preferrably using PCRE syntax, with POSIX [:alpha;] - type expressions if needed.

anyone got such a regexp lurking?

thanks,
christo

chr15t0 · 06-20-2003, 04:42 AM

I have the following expressions, which allows letters, spaces and hyphens, but I can't get it to allow a single quote "'"

/^[a-zA-Z -]+$/

I wonder if anyone can work out how to add a single quote to a character class. I have tried various combinations without success.

thanks
christo

chr15t0 · 06-20-2003, 05:55 AM

ha - I figured out the problem.. I had magic_quotes_gpc turned on.

doh!

christo