[regex] Regex to match a 2-digit number (to validate Credit/Debit Card Issue number)

I would like to use regex to match a string of exactly 2 characters, and both of those characters have to be between 0 and 9. The string to match against would be coming from a single-line text input field when an ASP.NET MVC view is rendered

So far, I have the regex

[0-9]{2}

and from the following list of example string inputs

  • 456
  • 55 44
  • 12

the following matches are returned when I apply the regex

  • 45
  • 55
    44
  • 12

So, I have kind of half the solution....what I actually want to enforce is that the string is also exactly 2 characters long, so that from the list of strings, the only one that should be matched is

12

I am an admitted amateur at regular expressions and am just using this to validate a card issue number on an ASP.NET MVC model as below....

[Required]
[RegularExpression("[0-9]{2}")]
public string IssueNumber { get; set; }

I'm sure that what i'm asking is quite simple but I wasn't able to find any examples that limited the length as part of the matching .

Thanks, in advance.

This question is related to regex asp.net-mvc

The answer is


You can use the start (^) and end ($) of line indicators:

^[0-9]{2}$

Some language also have functions that allows you to match against an entire string, where-as you were using a find function. Matching against the entire string will make your regex work as an alternative to the above. The above regex will also work, but the ^ and $ will be redundant.


Something like this would work

/^\d{2}$/

You need to use anchors to match the beginning of the string ^ and the end of the string $

^[0-9]{2}$