Using Regex to parse Comma Separated List

Question

I have a list of specific valid values: XX,SX,FC,SC,Jump.

Basically I need to look at user-supplied list of values and if one of the values does not match the above list I will throw an error. Can I use a regular expression to accomplish this?

You're going to want to use the 'split' function of whatever language you're using. And what language is that, by the way? — Kenan Banks
– Kenan Banks, Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 17:47
Indeed using split and sets is a way better solution, since that allows you to actually report which values are not allowed. With a regex you can only generate some very unhelpful error message. — pyroscope
– pyroscope, Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 17:54

João Silva · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-01 17:48:28Z

1

This will match a comma separated list of 5 sequences of alphanumeric characters.

[A-Za-z0-9](,[A-Za-z0-9]){4}

However, and depending on the language you are using, I'd normally split the string and then check the length of the resulting array. For instance, in Java:

String csvList = "XX,SX,FC,SC,Jump";
String[] elements = csvList.split(",");
if (elements.length != 5) {
  throw new Exception();
}

answered Aug 1, 2011 at 17:48

João Silva

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