Match Accented Letters with Regular Expressions

By  on  

Regular expressions are used for a variety of tasks but the one I see most often is input validation. Names, dates, numbers...we tend to use regular expressions for everything, even when we probably shouldn't.

The most common syntax for checking alphabetic characters is A-z but what if the string contains accented characters? Characters like ğ and Ö will make the regex fail. That's where we need to use Unicode property escapes to check for a broader letter format!

Let's look at how we can use \p{Letter} and the Unicode flag (u) to match both standard and accented characters:

// Single word
"Özil".match(/[\p{Letter}]+/gu)

// Word with spaces
"Oğuzhan Özyakup".match(/[\p{Letter}\s]+/gu);

Using regular expressions to validate strings, especially names, is much more difficult than A-z+. Names and other strings can be very diverse -- let's not insult users by making them provide non-accented letters just to pass validation!

Recent Features

  • By
    Create a CSS Cube

    CSS cubes really showcase what CSS has become over the years, evolving from simple color and dimension directives to a language capable of creating deep, creative visuals.  Add animation and you've got something really neat.  Unfortunately each CSS cube tutorial I've read is a bit...

  • By
    Being a Dev Dad

    I get asked loads of questions every day but I'm always surprised that they're rarely questions about code or even tech -- many of the questions I get are more about non-dev stuff like what my office is like, what software I use, and oftentimes...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Introducing MooTools ScrollSpy

    I've been excited to release this plugin for a long time. MooTools ScrollSpy is a unique but simple MooTools plugin that listens to page scrolling and fires events based on where the user has scrolled to in the page. Now you can fire specific...

  • By
    MooTools-Like Element Creation in jQuery

    I really dislike jQuery's element creation syntax. It's basically the same as typing out HTML but within a JavaScript string...ugly! Luckily Basil Goldman has created a jQuery plugin that allows you to create elements using MooTools-like syntax. Standard jQuery Element Creation Looks exactly like writing out...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!