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Regex: string up to 20char long, without specific characters

I am trying to make regexp for validating string not containing
^ ; , & . < > | and having 1-20 characters. Any other Unicode characters are valid (asian letters for example).
How to do it?

You can use the following:
^[^^;,&.<>|]{1,20}$
Explanation:
^ assert starting of the string
[^ start of negated character class ([^ ])
^;,&.<>| all the characters you dont want to match
] close the negates character class
{1,20} range of matches
$ assert ending of the string
It will match any character other than specified characters within range of 1-20.

Your regex \w[^;,&.<>|]{1,20} contains \w that might not match all Unicode letters (I guess your regex flavor does not match Unicode letters with \w). Anyway, the \w only matches 1 character in your pattern.
Also, you say you need to exclude ^ but it is missing in your pattern.
When you want to validate length, you also must use ^/$ anchors to mark the beginning and end of a string.
To create a pattern for some range that does not match specific characters, you need a negated character class with anchors around it, and the length is set with limiting quantifiers:
^[^^;,&.<>|]{1,20}$
Or (this version makes sure we only match at the beginning and end of the string, never a line):
\A[^^;,&.<>|]{1,20}\z
Note that inside a character class, almost all special characters do not require escaping (only some of them, none in your case). Even the ^ caret symbol.
See demo

RegEx works in tester not on site using JavaScript

I'm trying to write a RegEx that returns true if the string starts with / or http: and only allows alpha numeric characters, the dash and underscore. Any white space and any other special characters should fire a false response when tested.
Below works fine (except that it allows special characters, I have not figured out how to do that yet) when tested at https://www.regex101.com/#javascript. Unfortunately returns false when I implement it in my site and test it with /products/homedecor/tablecloths. What am I doing wrong and is there a better regEx to use that would accomplish my goals?
^(\\/|(?:http:))\S+[a-zA-Z0-9-_]+$

Keep unescaped hyphen at first or at last position in character class:
^(\/|(?:http:))[/.a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$
Or even simpler:
^(\/|http:)[/\w.-]+$
Since \w is same as [a-zA-Z0-9_]
To match URL you may need to match DOT and forward slash as well.

Just remove the \S+ from your regex and put the hyphen inside the character class at the first or at the last. Note that \S+ matches any non-space characters (including non-word characters).
^(\/|http:)[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$

regex to strictly check alphanumeric and special character

To check alphanumeric with special characters
var regex = /^[a-zA-Z0-9_$#.]{8,15}$/;
return regex.test(pass);
But, above regex returns true even I pass following combination
asghlkyudet
78346709tr
jkdg7683786
But, I want that, it must have alphanumeric and special character otherwise it must return false for any case. Ex:
fg56_fg$
Sghdfi#90

You can replace a-zA-Z0-9_ with \w, and using two anchored look-aheads - one for a special and one for a non-special, the briefest way to express it is:
/^(?=.*[_$#.])(?=.*[^_$#.])[\w$#.]{8,15}$/

Use look-ahead to check that the string has at least one alphanumeric character and at least one special character:
/^(?=.*[a-zA-Z0-9])(?=.*[_$#.])[a-zA-Z0-9_$#.]{8,15}$/
By the way, the set of special characters is too small. Even consider the set of ASCII characters, this is not even all the special characters.

The dollar sign is a reserved character for Regexes. You need to escape it.
var regex = /^[a-zA-Z0-9_/$#.]{8,15}$/;

I want to ignore square brackets when using javascript regex [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Why is this regex allowing a caret?
(3 answers)
Closed 1 year ago.
I am using javascript regex to do some data validation and specify the characters that i want to accept (I want to accept any alphanumeric characters, spaces and the following !&,'\- and maybe a few more that I'll add later if needed). My code is:
var value = userInput;
var pattern = /[^A-z0-9 "!&,'\-]/;
if(patt.test(value) == true) then do something
It works fine and excludes the letters that I don't want the user to enter except the square bracket and the caret symbols. From all the javascript regex tutorials that i have read they are special characters - the brackets meaning any character between them and the caret in this instance meaning any character not in between the square brackets. I have searched here and on google for an explanation as to why these characters are also accepted but can't find an explanation.
So can anyone help, why does my input accept the square brackets and the caret?

The reason is that you are using A-z rather than A-Za-z. The ascii range between Z (0x5a) and a (0x61) includes the square brackets, the caret, backquote, and underscore.

Your regex is not in line with what you said:
I want to accept any alphanumeric characters, spaces and the following !&,'\- and maybe a few more that I'll add later if needed
If you want to accept only those characters, you need to remove the caret:
var pattern = /^[A-Za-z0-9 "!&,'\\-]+$/;
Notes:
A-z also includesthe characters: [\]^_`.
Use A-Za-z or use the i modifier to match only alphabets:
var pattern = /^[a-z0-9 "!&,'\\-]+$/i;
\- is only the character -, because the backslash will act as special character for escaping. Use \\ to allow a backslash.
^ and $ are anchors, used to match the beginning and end of the string. This ensures that the whole string is matched against the regex.
+ is used after the character class to match more than one character.
If you mean that you want to match characters other than the ones you accept and are using this to prevent the user from entering 'forbidden' characters, then the first note above describes your issue. Use A-Za-z instead of A-z (the second note is also relevant).

I'm not sure what you want but I don't think your current regexp does what you think it does:
It tries to find one character is not A-z0-9 "!&,'\- (^ means not).
Also, I'm not even sure what A-z matches. It's either a-z or A-Z.
So your current regexp matches strings like "." and "Hi." but not "Hi"

Try this: var pattern = /[^\w"!&,'\\-]/;
Note: \w also includes _, so if you want to avoid that then try
var pattern = /[^a-z0-9"!&,'\\-]/i;
I think the issue with your regex is that A-z is being understood as all characters between 0x41 (65) and 0x7A (122), which included the characters []^_` that are between A-Z and a-z. (Z is 0x5A (90) and a is 0x61 (97), which means the preceding characters take up 0x5B thru 0x60).

Regex with special chars

Hi I have this regex.
/^[\w]|[åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$/
"tå" is ok but "åå" is not. Why is that? How can I make it accept words starting with åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ?

Note that the \w (and \W, \b, and \B) are English-centric. \w just means [A-Za-z0-9_], where A-Z means only the 26 English letters. Other letters are not considered part of a "word" by JavaScript's built-in character classes.
You'll need to build a character class including all of the letters you want to treat as word characters (then use the negated version of that wherever you "non-word character").
But that's not the only problem. Your regular expression says:
Match one English word character at the beginning of the string, or match one of this list of characters at the end of the string.
The | operator is fairly greedy, in this case it treats ^[\w] and [åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$ as the alternatives. I don't get the impression that's what you wanted.
"tå" is ok but "åå" is not.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "ok". Both match the expression:
console.log("tå".match(/^[\w]|[åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$/)); // ["t", index: 0, input: "tå"]
console.log("åå".match(/^[\w]|[åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$/)); // ["å", index: 1, input: "åå"]
"tå" matches because it matches the ^[\w] alternative. "åå" matches because it matches the [åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$ alternative.
How can I make it accept words starting with åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ?
If the goal is to accept only strings containing exactly one word, where "word" includes digits and the underscore (since \w does), then:
/^[A-Za-z0-9_åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]+$/

Why do you think it fails? I would not put the \w in square brackets but various systems seem to allow that and both the following match the text being tested.
Javascript
var test = 'åå';
if (test.match(/^[\w]|[åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$/)) { alert("Match"); }
PHP
echo(preg_match("/^[\w]|[åäöæøÅÄÖÆØ]$/","åå")."</br>");
What are you trying to achieve here?