Can a YouTube video be comprised of only numbers, if so how to match a string that is not only numbers?

user_14111707 0
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EDIT: I recently found out(with help from some kind Stack Overflow users) that there are valid YouTube videos that are only letters.

Same question as here but with the addition of checking letters into the equation.

I was wondering if it is possible for the video ids for YouTube videos to be comprised of just numbers like this: 12345678901. I'm writing an expression to validate a string that is a YouTube video id. Here is a simplified version of the expression in action(source here for further debugging):

const foo = /((http?(?:s)?:?\/\/)?(www\.)?)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?&v=))((?:\w|-){11})((?:\&|\?)\S*)?|(?:^(\w|-){11}$)|(?:\w|-){11}$/;

let bar = "dQw4w9WgXcQ"

// logs true
console.log("is valid: " + foo.test(bar));

Is it possible to write a regular expression that matches a string that does not only contain numbers or letters?

Criteria

These should work:

  • abcdefghijk
  • ecK3EnyGD8o
  • 1s3get2-3ds
  • 4bc2qfs2wrf
  • 28yq389gfwg
  • 3oyh8pw489p

But these shouldn't:

  • abcdefghijk
  • 12345678910? (unknown at the moment if YouTube supports video ids that are only numbers)
  • 18974107892351240891751928347819234
  • Stack Overflow
  • kjsad;kflj;klasdfkjalk;sdfjlkas
  • !&$@#)&&()%&*(#@$&(
javascript regex
4 Answers

Used a negative lookahead to check if its not all numbers, then followed by a check if its all word characters and a dash only pattern.

/^(?!\d+$)[\w\-]+$/


let valids = [
  'abcdefghijk',
  'ecK3EnyGD8o',
  '1s3get2-3ds',
  '4bc2qfs2wrf',
  '28yq389gfwg',
  '3oyh8pw489p'
];

let invalids = [
  '12345678910',
  '18974107892351240891751928347819234',
  'Stack Overflow',
  'kjsad;kflj;klasdfkjalk;sdfjlkas',
  '!&$@#)&&()%&*(#@$&('
];

let pattern = /^(?!\d+$)[\w\-]+$/;

for (var i = 0; i < valids.length; i++)
  console.log(valids[i], pattern.test(valids[i]))

for (var i = 0; i < invalids.length; i++)
  console.log(invalids[i], pattern.test(invalids[i]))

user_33152020

Use

^[\d_-]*[a-zA-Z][-\w]*$

See regex proof.

EXPLANATION

Part of Expression What it Does
^ the beginning of the string
[\d_-]* any character of: digits (0-9), _, - (0 or more times(matching the most amount possible))
[a-zA-Z] any character of: a-z, A-Z
[-\w]* any character of: - word characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _) (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible))
$ before an optional \n, and the end of the string

JavaScript code:

const oks = [
  'abcdefghijk',
  'ecK3EnyGD8o',
  '1s3get2-3ds',
  '4bc2qfs2wrf',
  '28yq389gfwg',
  '3oyh8pw489p'
];

const nonoks = [
  '12345678910',
  '18974107892351240891751928347819234',
  'Stack Overflow',
  'kjsad;kflj;klasdfkjalk;sdfjlkas',
  '!&$@#)&&()%&*(#@$&('
];

const regex = /^[\d_-]*[a-zA-Z][-\w]*$/;

for (const i of oks)
  console.log(i, regex.test(i))

for (const i of nonoks)
  console.log(i, regex.test(i))

user_113298900

Try this on for size:

const re = /[\w]*(\p{L}\d|\d\p{L})[\w]*/u;

console.log("abcdefghijk".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("ecK3EnyGD8o".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("1s3get2-3ds".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("4bc2qfs2wrf".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("28yq389gfwg".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("3oyh8pw489p".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("12345678910".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("18974107892351240891751928347819234".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("Stack Overflow".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("kjsad;kflj;klasdfkjalk;sdfjlkas".match( re ) || "Failed");
console.log("!&$@#)&&()%&*(#@$&(".match( re ) || "Failed");

You meant for "abcdefghijk" to be a fail case right? It only contains letters.

"1s3get2-3ds" will fail as it contains a hyphen. If you want to consider valid symbols just add them to the "[\w]", like so for hyphen: [-\w]

user_161451400

Used regex:

/^([a-zA-Z-]+|[a-zA-Z0-9-]*?([a-zA-Z][0-9]|[0-9][a-zA-Z])[a-zA-Z0-9-]*?)$/

Regex in testbench and context:

const validFormat = ["abcdefghijk", "ecK3EnyGD8o", "1s3get2-3ds"
, "4bc2qfs2wrf" , "28yq389gfwg", "3oyh8pw489p"];

const invalidInput = ["12345678910", "18974107892351240891751928347819234"
, "Stack Overflow", "kjsad;kflj;klasdfkjalk;sdfjlkas", "!&$@#)&&()%&*(#@$&("];

const validAndInvalidInput = validFormat.concat(invalidInput);

const regex = /^([a-zA-Z-]+|[a-zA-Z0-9-]*?([a-zA-Z][0-9]|[0-9][a-zA-Z])[a-zA-Z0-9-]*?)$/;
for(const input of validAndInvalidInput) {
    console.log(input, ' -> ', regex.test(input));
}

Console output:

abcdefghijk  ->  true
ecK3EnyGD8o  ->  true
1s3get2-3ds  ->  true
4bc2qfs2wrf  ->  true
28yq389gfwg  ->  true
3oyh8pw489p  ->  true
12345678910  ->  false
18974107892351240891751928347819234  ->  false
Stack Overflow  ->  false
kjsad;kflj;klasdfkjalk;sdfjlkas  ->  false
!&$@#)&&()%&*(#@$&(  ->  false
user_64224590
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