Need help with a file path validation regular expression

Question

I am using a RegularExpressionValidator in visual studio and I am struggling to create the correct regular expression for my needs. Here is what I want:

The input can contain any character except <>:"/|?* Also, the input can not contain two backslashes in a row

So, your\mom would be ok but your\\mom would fail as would your*mom

The closest I have come at this point is something like

^(?=.*[^<>:"/|?*])(?:[^\\]+|\\(?:$|[^\\])).{0,100}$

but it doesn't work.

Does it have to be a regex? What about using the substring function to check that 1. none of <>:"/|?* is a substring of the input and 2. \\ is not a substring of the input? — Jong Bor Lee
– Jong Bor Lee, Commented May 19, 2011 at 19:39
Well, I suppose I could have used a custom validator and coded it to do that but the solution below works great so I'm gonna call it good — user761605
– user761605, Commented May 20, 2011 at 18:39

Tim Pietzcker · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-19 19:48:47Z

1

^(?!.*\\\\)[^<>:"/|?*]*$

should do it.

(?!.*\\\\) asserts that there are no two backslashes in a row in the string.

[^<>:"/|?*]* matches any number of characters except the ones inside the character class.

That is, unless you're talking about the regex features of Visual Studio (the IDE environment itself) which has a wildly nonstandard regex flavor.

answered May 19, 2011 at 19:48

Tim Pietzcker

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