Detailed Description

The QRegExpValidator class is used to check a string against a regular expression.

QRegExpValidator uses a regular expression (regexp) to determine whether an input string is Acceptable, Intermediate, or Invalid. The regexp can either be supplied when the QRegExpValidator is constructed, or at a later time.

When QRegExpValidator determines whether a string is Acceptable or not, the regexp is treated as if it begins with the start of string assertion (^) and ends with the end of string assertion ($); the match is against the entire input string, or from the given position if a start position greater than zero is given.

If a string is a prefix of an Acceptable string, it is considered Intermediate. For example, "" and "A" are Intermediate for the regexp [A-Z][0-9] (whereas "_" would be Invalid).

For a brief introduction to Qt's regexp engine, see QRegExp.

Example of use:

// regexp: optional '-' followed by between 1 and 3 digits
QRegExp rx("-?\\d{1,3}");
QValidator *validator = new QRegExpValidator(rx, this);

QLineEdit *edit = new QLineEdit(this);
edit->setValidator(validator);

Below we present some examples of validators. In practice they would normally be associated with a widget as in the example above.

// integers 1 to 9999
QRegExp rx("[1-9]\\d{0,3}");
// the validator treats the regexp as "^[1-9]\\d{0,3}$"
QRegExpValidator v(rx, 0);
QString s;
int pos = 0;

s = "0";     v.validate(s, pos);    // returns Invalid
s = "12345"; v.validate(s, pos);    // returns Invalid
s = "1";     v.validate(s, pos);    // returns Acceptable

rx.setPattern("\\S+");            // one or more non-whitespace characters
v.setRegExp(rx);
s = "myfile.txt";  v.validate(s, pos); // Returns Acceptable
s = "my file.txt"; v.validate(s, pos); // Returns Invalid

// A, B or C followed by exactly five digits followed by W, X, Y or Z
rx.setPattern("[A-C]\\d{5}[W-Z]");
v.setRegExp(rx);
s = "a12345Z"; v.validate(s, pos);        // Returns Invalid
s = "A12345Z"; v.validate(s, pos);        // Returns Acceptable
s = "B12";     v.validate(s, pos);        // Returns Intermediate

// match most 'readme' files
rx.setPattern("read\\S?me(\.(txt|asc|1st))?");
rx.setCaseSensitive(false);
v.setRegExp(rx);
s = "readme";      v.validate(s, pos); // Returns Acceptable
s = "README.1ST";  v.validate(s, pos); // Returns Acceptable
s = "read me.txt"; v.validate(s, pos); // Returns Invalid
s = "readm";       v.validate(s, pos); // Returns Intermediate