Question

I need to create a regular expression that matches an ID that has a specific format. The ID always begins with “OR” followed by 4 digits, then a dash, then another number that can be of any length. Examples of valid matches are:

OR1581-2
OR0057-101
OR0000-5312
OR3450-17371

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try ^OR\d{4}-\d+$.

• The ^ matches the beginning of the string or line.
• OR is not a special sequence and will match only those two characters in order.
• \d matches any digit, and {4} is shorthand for listing the preceding group (the digit) exactly four times.
• - is not a special character and will match only the hyphen.
• \d matches any digit again, and the + requires the preceding group (the digit) to occur one or more times.
• $ matches the end of the string or line.