Identifying invalid char position using RegExp

[Ron Brennan]

Good morning.

I would like to use one or more RegExps to validate country names as having
the first and last words beginning with an uppercase letter, intermediate
words beginning with either uppercase or lowercase, and all other characters
being lowercase characters. For example:

Turks and Caicos

The difficult part is that I want to obtain save the string positions of the
invalid characters in an array, rather than just obtain a true or false
value.

Can anybody with more experience with Regular Expressions than me suggest
some code, sites, or approaches.

Thanks,
Ron

[Evertjan.]

Ron Brennan wrote on 20 nov 2004 in comp.lang.javascript:

Good morning.
Not for us overhee in Europe ;-)

I would like to use one or more RegExps to validate country names as
having the first and last words beginning with an uppercase letter,
intermediate words beginning with either uppercase or lowercase, and
all other characters being lowercase characters. For example:

Turks and Caicos

The difficult part is that I want to obtain save the string positions
of the invalid characters in an array, rather than just obtain a true
or false value.

simple testing is a Regex job:

s = 'Turks and Caicos'
alert(/^[A-Z][a-z]+ ([A-Za-z][a-z]+ )*[A-Z][a-z]+$/.test(s))

however your question is more a looping afair, not simple regex:

=======================

yourtest('Turks and Caicos')
yourtest('turKs anD cCaicos')
yourtest('turks And cCaicoS')

function yourtest(s){
stest = ' '
for (i=0;i<s.length;i++){
LastIsSpace = / /.test(stest)
stest = s.substr(i,1)
if (
i==0 &&
/[^A-Z]/.test(stest)
) // test first letter
document.write(i+' ff '+stest+'<br>')
else if (
LastIsSpace &&
/[^A-Z ]/.test(stest) &&
!/ /.test(s.substr(i,999))
) // test first letter last word
document.write(i+' ff '+stest+'<br>')
else if (
!LastIsSpace &&
/[^a-z ]/.test(stest)
) // test nonfirst letters
document.write(i+' FF '+stest+'<br>')
else // OK
document.write(i+' OK '+stest+'<br>')
}
document.write('<br><br>')
}

=======================

Please make your own array.
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress,
but let us keep the discussions in the newsgroup)

[Ron Brennan]

Yes, that appears to be exacly what I wanted. I'll confirm that it works in
my application when I finish.

Thanks to Evertjan for the generous contribution of time and effort.

Ron

[Dr John Stockton]

JRS: In article <RO********************@magma.ca>, dated Sat, 20 Nov
2004 10:16:27, seen in news:comp.lang.javascript, Ron Brennan
<rb******@magma.ca> posted :

I would like to use one or more RegExps to validate country names as having
the first and last words beginning with an uppercase letter, intermediate
words beginning with either uppercase or lowercase, and all other characters
being lowercase characters. For example:

Turks and Caicos

That policy fails for, among others,
British Virgin Islands
Campione d'Italia
Saint-Pierre et Miquelon
Turks and Caicos Islands
British Antarctic Territory
British Indian Territory
French Southern Territories
Juan de Nova Island
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera
and, of course,
the United States of America
Stato della Citta del Vaticano
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Poblacht na h'Eireann
La Republique de la Cote d'Ivoire
Daulat Libiya al-'Arabiya al-Ishtrakiya al-Jumhuriya
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo
Chung-hua Min Kuo
and others.

Including Lord Howe Island; a place of interest that Win98 seems not to
be configurable for.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. ©
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc : <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm moredate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.

[Ron Brennan]

That policy fails for, among others,
British Virgin Islands
Campione d'Italia
Saint-Pierre et Miquelon
Turks and Caicos Islands
British Antarctic Territory
British Indian Territory
French Southern Territories
Juan de Nova Island
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera
and, of course,
the United States of America
Stato della Citta del Vaticano
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Poblacht na h'Eireann
La Republique de la Cote d'Ivoire
Daulat Libiya al-'Arabiya al-Ishtrakiya al-Jumhuriya
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo
Chung-hua Min Kuo
and others.

Including Lord Howe Island; a place of interest that Win98 seems not to
be configurable for.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. © Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms PAS EXE etc : <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see 00index.htm Dates - miscdate.htm moredate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm

etc.

The policy was a prototype I tentatively adoped when I didn't immediately
think of any of the many cases you cited. Obviously the policy has to be
rewritten and probably requires as part of it an enumeration of exceptions.
I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow and post it here for review.

[Rob B]

Have you considered

1) doing this at the server
2) using 'dependent' listboxes at the client

Both would present the user with valid choices, rather than attempting
an algorithm to validate such a wide array of possibilities....

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