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How to get the valid part of a regex match

I want to test if a user string is "ok so far", in that it might not be valid as a whole but it is a subset of a valid one.
I have a regex say ^[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]$
such that "1234-1234-5678-5678" is valid
"1234-12" or even "1" does not match pattern but its a valid subset of a valid format, in other words the input is ok so far.
is there a neat way of doing this without making many many regexes, its friday.

Not sure if I understood well your problem, but I think you want to have something like this:
^([0-9]{4}-){1,3}[0-9]{1,4}$
Working demo
This will match set of 4 digits and can have the last set from 1 to 4 digits
You can also shorten your regex with:
^(\d{4}-){1,3}\d{1,4}$

You could possibly use one final regex for validation of the form you currently have, and a on the fly regex for the user input being valid for each subset.
My idea would be to have ([0-9]{1,4}-)+

For your case this will check as one types:
/^(\d(\d(\d(\d(-(\d(\d(\d(\d(-(\d(\d(\d(\d(-(\d)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?)?$/

This regex will match key for key as you type, although it is a little cumbersome.
^([0-9]{1,4}|[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{0,4}|[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{0,4}|[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{0,4})$
Here is a live example

Javascript Simple check for webform to make sure it contains both numbers and letters (instead of my code)

I have this code:
if(address.length<=0)
{
msg.setAttribute("style", "color:red");
msg.innerHTML='Please enter address';
return false;
}
I would like to change so it checks whether the webform contains BOTH numbers and letters. Can you help me?
Thank you so much,
Jones
p.s.: So I want to make sure they also enter street name AND house number as well (example: 24 Sunshine street would be good, but if they forget house number, they would get the message).

That doesn't look like PHP at all. More like JavaScript...
Here's one way to do it in JavaScript:
var re = /^\d+\s+\D+$/;
if (re.test(address)) {
//We get here if the address is correctly formated
}
else {
//We get here if the string is badly formated
}
The regex works like this:
\d+ matches to one or more numbers
\s+ matches to one or more spaces
\D+ matches to one or more letters
If you want to accept both "24 Sunshine" and "Sunshine 24" you could instead use this:
/^(\d+\s+\D+)|(\D+\s+\d+)$/
And if we want to be extra safe and protect from the case that the user might enter an extra trailing or leading space we could either trail the string or use this ReGex:
/^\s*(\d+\s+\D+)|(\D+\s+\d+)\s*$/

Apart from regular expression which is a very nice and clear solution you can use these php functions:
first the ctype_alnum () in order to check if your string contains letters and digits and then
this on ctype_alpha() in case the above is true to check if user forgot to enter number.
In case you are interested there is also this one ctype_digit() for checking if user missed the address but gave the number.
Or if you want just a regex this it will do the job:
^[a-zA-Z]([a-zA-Z-]+\s)+\d{1,4}

Regular Expression to allow brackets () to be valiadated

Using Adobe Live cycle, I am creating a form which contains a telephone number field. The telephone number field should only accept numbers, plus symbols and brackets
At the moment I have an expression for validation that accepts pluses and numbers but when I try to add brackets to it, it seems to break it.
if (xfa.event.newText.match(/[^0-9+]/))
{
xfa.event.change = "";
}
Can someone point me into the right direction please. Thanks!!

You want to include the brackets in the character set:
if (xfa.event.newText.match(/[^0-9+()]/)
But note that this doesn't really validate actual phone numbers. This would accept ((())) as a valid phone number.
Validating a phone number is a solved problem, please search around.

Mobile or phone number validation in javascript

I need to validate phone or mobile number in javascript.
It should match the following types:
+91-9198387083
9198387083
09198387083
It is a 10 digit number with one of these four prefixes '+91-', '+91', '0' or ''
Can someone suggest me a regex expression in javascript which matches all the three types.

I'd using something like this:
/^(\+91-|\+91|0)?\d{10}$/
This is very specific about one of your three allowable prefixes (or no prefix) followed by exactly 10 digits and no extra characters on the beginning of end of the string.
Test app with both valid and invalid phone numbers here: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/K9bjL/

Something like this should work:
/\+?[0-9]+-?[0-9]/

10 digit number with one of these four prefixes +91-, +91, 0 or :
/(\+91-?|0)?\d{10}/

+7 (123) 45-67-890
8(123)381-198-2
and etc.
My simply mask for all of similar phones
/^[+]?(\d[^\d]*){11}$/

Need regex to match unformatted phone number syntax

I need a regex for Javascript that will match a phone number stripped of all characters except numbers and 'x' (for extension). Here are some example formats:
12223334444
2223334444
2223334444x5555
You are guaranteed to always have a minimum of 10 numerical digits, as the leading '1' and extension are optional. There is also no limit on the number of numerical digits that may appear after the 'x'. I want the numbers to be split into the following backreferences:
(1)(222)(333)(4444)x(5555)
The parenthesis above demonstrate how I want the number to be split up into backreferences. The first set of parenthesis would be assigned to backreference $1, for example.
So far, here is what I've come up with for a regex. Keep in mind that I'm not really that great with regex, and regexlib.com hasn't really helped me out in this department.
(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{4})
The above regex handles the 2nd case in my list of example test cases in my first code snippet above. However, this regex needs to be modified to handle both the optional '1' and extension. Any help on this? Thanks!

Regex option seems perfectly fine to me.
var subject = '2223334444';
result = subject.replace(/^1?(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{4})(x\d+)?$/mg, "1$1$2$3$4");
alert(result);
if(!result.match(/^\d{11}(?:x\d+)?/))
alert('The phone number came out invalid. Perhaps it was entered incorrectly');
This will say 12223334444 when there is no extension
I expect you want to tweak this out some, let me know how it should be.

If I were you, I would not go with a regular expression for this — it would cause more headaches than it solved. I would:
Split the phone number on the "x", store the last part in the extension.
See how long the initial part is, 9 or 10 digits
If it's 10 digits, check that the first is a 1, slice it off, and then continue with the 9-digit process:
If it's 9 digits, split it up into 3-3-4 and split them into area code, exchange, number.
Validate the area code and exchange code according to the rules of the NANP.
This will validate your phone number and be much, much easier and will make it possible for you to enforce rules like "no X11 area codes" or "no X11 exchange codes" more-easily — you'd have to do this anyway, and it's probably easier to just use plain string manipulation to split it into substrings.

I did a bit more testing and here's a solution I've found. I haven't found a case where this breaks yet, but if someone sees something wrong with it please let me know:
(1)?(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{4})(?:x(\d+))?
Update:
I've revised the regex above to handle some more edge cases. This new version will fail completely if something unexpected is present.
(^1|^)(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{4})($|(?:x(\d+))$)

My regex is:
/\+?[0-9\-\ \(\)]{10,22}/g