Custom Keystroke Script Help

[dcnorman07]

I am kinda confused at the moment. I want the users to only be able to enter alpha/numeric characters, but be able to use the spacebar as well. The Regex I have right now works, but does not allow spaces to be entered. I can't figure out how to allow for spaces. I've tried all I can think of right now, but nothing seems to work right. Here is the working code without spaces......

//Allow only alpha/numeric keystrokes
if (event.change.match(/(\W+)/g)) 
    event.rc = false;
 

Another question, not that it's important or anything, why do I have to use \W instead of \w for alpha/numeric characters? Anyways, any help would be appreciated........

[pbmods]

Heya, Norman. Welcome to TSDN!

Please use CODE tags when posting source code:

[CODE=javascript]
JavaScript code goes here.
[/CODE]

[acoder]

I am kinda confused at the moment. I want the users to only be able to enter alpha/numeric characters, but be able to use the spacebar as well. The Regex I have right now works, but does not allow spaces to be entered...

You can use \s for whitespace characters. This would match tabs and line feeds too.

Another question, not that it's important or anything, why do I have to use \W instead of \w for alpha/numeric characters?

\W is a negated character class. See link. You're trying to match a non-alphanumeric character.

A note: \w also matches underscore.

[dcnorman07]

Ya, I know the \w is for alpha/numeric, but when I do that, all I can do is use special characters. No numbers or alphabetic characters at all. Which I thought was weird. The problem I'm having is placing the \s without "voiding" the script. Everywhere I've tried to place the \s makes the entire string act like there's nothing there and you can then enter whatever you want in the field. I just can't figure this one out. Any new scripts to only allow alpha/numeric keystrokes wouldn't hurt any. I have it working for numeric and alpha only characters, just not alpha/numeric. Appreciate the help though.....

[mrhoo]

Use a space character to match a space in a regular expression.

var Rx= /[a-zA-Z0-9 ]+/ will match any number of letters, digits and spaces.




Note to moderators- this is a comment, not a script. It is easier to read and understand without your code formatting. The next time you edit one of my posts will be my last post in this forum.

[dcnorman07]

Still not workin' for me. Thanks for the help guys....guess I'll just keep playing around with it or just not be able to format it the way I want. Life will go on. Thanks for tryin'

[acoder]

Ya, I know the \w is for alpha/numeric, but when I do that, all I can do is use special characters. No numbers or alphabetic characters at all. Which I thought was weird. The problem I'm having is placing the \s without "voiding" the script. Everywhere I've tried to place the \s makes the entire string act like there's nothing there and you can then enter whatever you want in the field. I just can't figure this one out. Any new scripts to only allow alpha/numeric keystrokes wouldn't hurt any. I have it working for numeric and alpha only characters, just not alpha/numeric. Appreciate the help though.....

The reason for this is that you're matching the opposite of what you want to allow and cancelling the event. Use the regex posted by mrhoo, but add a !, e.g.

if (!event.change.match...)

[dcnorman07]

The reason for this is that you're matching the opposite of what you want to allow and cancelling the event. Use the regex posted by mrhoo, but add a !, e.g.

if (!event.change.match...)

Thank you! That worked great, except now you can't backspace or delete the input. Any suggestions on how to allow the backspace?



Edit:
I basically did the opposite and got a satisfying result....

//Allow only alpha/numeric keystrokes with spaces
if (event.change.match(/[!@#$%^&*()=+?><"~]+/))
    event.rc = false;
 

Thank you so much guys for your help!!!

[acoder]

Thank you! That worked great, except now you can't backspace or delete the input. Any suggestions on how to allow the backspace?

Use \b to match a backspace.

Edit:
I basically did the opposite and got a satisfying result....

//Allow only alpha/numeric keystrokes with spaces
if (event.change.match(/[!@#$%^&*()=+?><"~]+/))
    event.rc = false;
 

This will not work properly if someone uses special characters with accents and umlauts.