How to allow only English letters in input fields?

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So, this is my input field:

<input type={type} name={name} />

How can I allow only English letters?

This is the RegEx, I believe I should use: /[A-Za-z]/ig

https://regex101.com/r/upWFNy/1

I am assuming that onChange() event should be used for this with the combination of setState() and event.target.value.

Thanks.

PS. I need to have this WHILE typing.

6 Answers

I would try this onChange function:

onChange={(e) => {
  let value = e.target.value

  value = value.replace(/[^A-Za-z]/ig, '')

  this.setState({
    value,
  })
}}

See the codepen: https://codepen.io/bozdoz/pen/vzJgQB

The idea is to reverse your regex matcher with ^ and replace all non-A-z characters with ''

You can use the pattern attribute in your input.

    <input pattern = “[A-Za-z]”>

This should do the trick, all characters except ascii 0-127 which are English characters should be excluded, o through 127 also gives you space, +, -, / and punctuation which is useful, if you want only letters then [^A-z] should do the trick, if you need non-space characters then [^A-z\s] should work:

document.getElementById('english').addEventListener('input', function(){
  this.value = this.value.replace(/[^\x00-\x7F]+/ig, '');
});

React Way:

class InputEnglish extends React.Component {
  constructor(){
    super();
    this.state = {value: ''};
    this.onChange = this.onChange.bind(this);
  }
  onChange(e) {
    let val = e.target.value.replace(/[^\x00-\x7F]/ig, '');
    this.setState(state => ({ value: val }));
  }
  render() {
    return (<input 
        value={this.state.value}
        onChange={this.onChange}
    />);
  }
}

https://codepen.io/anon/pen/QVMgrd

You can try to use the Regx to solve this issue. Just check the character that entered is an alphabet using regx. If not then don't update the state value.

import React from "react";

class InputValidationDemo extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {
      type: "text",
      name: "username",
      value: ""
    };
  }
  onChange = (e) => {
    const re = /^[A-Za-z]+$/;
    if (e.target.value === "" || re.test(e.target.value))
      this.setState({ value: e.target.value });
  };

  render() {
    const { type, name, value } = this.state;
    return (
      <div>
        <input type={type} name={name} value={value} onChange={this.onChange} />
      </div>
    );
  }
}
export default InputValidationDemo;

https://codesandbox.io/s/react-input-only-letters-qyf2j

The important part is the regular expression. You can change your validation type by changing the regex.

You could use /[A-Za-z]/ regular expression and an input event handler which is fired every time the value of the element changes. Something like below:

const regex = /[A-Za-z]/;
function validate(e) {
  const chars = e.target.value.split('');
  const char = chars.pop();
  if (!regex.test(char)) {
    e.target.value = chars.join('');
    console.log(`${char} is not a valid character.`);
  }
}
document.querySelector('#myInput').addEventListener('input', validate);
<label for="myInput">Type some text:</label>
<input id="myInput" type="text" />

  alphacheck(e: any) {
    const regex = /[A-Za-z]/;
    const chars = e.target.value.split('');
    const char = chars.pop();
    console.log(char);
    if (!regex.test(char)) {
      e.target.value = chars.join('');
      alert("Please enter only alphabets");
      e.preventDefault();
      return false;
     
    }
    else {
      return true;
    }
  }


<input placeholder="Full Name" formControlName="fullName"  pattern="[a-zA-Z]*"  (keypress)="alphacheck($event)"  name="fullname" value="" type="text" class="form-control">
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