Regex not working for password? not sure why

So I have a regex code to make sure the password is from 4 to 13 characters, it keeps failing

public function valid_password($password){
        if(preg_match('^.{3,14}^', $password)){
            return true;
        }//end if
        else{
            ret开发者_StackOverflowurn false;
        }//end else     
    } 

I'm using regex and not php's length attribute because I will be adding more regex code later on. However, now I'm stuck with this failing program.

The problem is, it makes sure the password is over 3 characters however it doesn't care how long it is as if I have set no limit.

Thanks in advance

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You have used ^ as delimiters php.net/mregexp.reference.delimiters.php here:

^.{3,14}^

That's possible, but not a good idea in your case, because you need the ^ for its actual purpose. It matches the start of the subject normally. And to correctly count the length, yout need to do that. You also need the $ end of subject meta character.

So basically:

preg_match('/^.{3,14}$/'

Now if you want to combine this regex with other match criteria, I would recommend this fancy assertion syntax:

preg_match('/(?=^.{3,14}$) (...)/x', $password)

This will allow you to specify something else in place of ... - and keep the length check implicit.

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^ is the anchor for the beginning of a string. The end of a string is delimited using $:

public function valid_password($password) {
    return preg_match('~^.{3,14}$~', $password);
}

But in this case I wouldn't use a regex, but the strlen function instead:

public function valid_password($password) {
    $length = strlen($password);
    return $length >= 3 && $length <= 14;
}

If you like hacking around to save you that line:

public function valid_password($password) {
    return isset($password[2]) && !isset($password[14]);
}

But really, why do you want to restrict password length to 14 characters? That way you prevent people from choosing really secure passwords. You probably should raise that limit.

---

Try this:

preg_match('/^.{3,14}$/', $password)

---

try

preg_match('/^.{3,14}$/', $password)

but regexp for counting string length?? = Overkill

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^ matches the start of a string, not the end. $ matches the end.

And you forgot your delimiters.

The full, fixed line is:

if (preg_match('/^.{3,14}$/', $password)) {

However, I strongly recommend that you instead use:

$len = strlen($password);
if ($len >= 3 && $len <= 14) {

instead, since regular expressions are completely overkill for this.