Question

I have a problem with an regular expression which allow me to put a name lets say if an institution which can contain special characters for other languages, white space and – char.
I know that expression i created:

/^[a-zA-Z- "\']*$/

will allow chars from a to z and -‘” chars and white space. But when i type żźćąś or other languages special chars string is not valid, but i want it to be valid.

Second expression which i created:

/^[^\~\\!\\@\\#\\$\\%\\^\\&\\*\\(\\)\\`\\1\\2\\3\\4\\5\\6\\7\\8\\9\\0\\_\\+\\=\\{\\}\\:\\"\\;\\\\\<\\>\\?\\,\\.\\/\ ]*$/

allows a-z characters without characters disallowed above. But I dont disallow white space in regex above but when i type something with space like that for example:

"Bielsko Biała"

Its not valid, but when i type it together:

"BielskoBiała"

it is valid with ą character. So i’d like to allow special chars like żźćąśł and others from other languages but also like to allow white spaces and i dont knot how to do it.

When i was using Alpha validator it was ok but dont allow to put -‘” chars which i also want to allow.

Answer 1

First you have to enable UTF-8 support with the u switch. Then you can match unicode letters with the sequence \pL. See here.

So your solution would be

/^[\pL- "\']*$/u