Decimal or numeric values in regular expression validation

I am trying to use a regular expression validation to check for only decimal values or numeric values. But user enters numeric value, it don't be first digit "0"

How do I do that?

Solution 1:

A digit in the range 1-9 followed by zero or more other digits:

^[1-9]\d*$

To allow numbers with an optional decimal point followed by digits. A digit in the range 1-9 followed by zero or more other digits then optionally followed by a decimal point followed by at least 1 digit:

^[1-9]\d*(\.\d+)?$

Notes:

• The ^ and $ anchor to the start and end basically saying that the whole string must match the pattern

• ()? matches 0 or 1 of the whole thing between the brackets

Update to handle commas:

In regular expressions . has a special meaning - match any single character. To match literally a . in a string you need to escape the . using \. This is the meaning of the \. in the regexp above. So if you want to use comma instead the pattern is simply:

^[1-9]\d*(,\d+)?$

Further update to handle commas and full stops

If you want to allow a . between groups of digits and a , between the integral and the fractional parts then try:

^[1-9]\d{0,2}(\.\d{3})*(,\d+)?$

i.e. this is a digit in the range 1-9 followed by up to 2 other digits then zero or more groups of a full stop followed by 3 digits then optionally your comma and digits as before.

If you want to allow a . anywhere between the digits then try:

^[1-9][\.\d]*(,\d+)?$

i.e. a digit 1-9 followed by zero or more digits or full stops optionally followed by a comma and one or more digits.

Solution 2:

Actually, none of the given answers are fully cover the request.
As the OP didn't provided a specific use case or types of numbers, I will try to cover all possible cases and permutations.

Regular Numbers

Whole Positive

This number is usually called unsigned integer, but you can also call it a positive non-fractional number, include zero. This includes numbers like 0, 1 and 99999.
The Regular Expression that covers this validation is:

/^(0|[1-9]\d*)$/

Test This Regex

Whole Positive and Negative

This number is usually called signed integer, but you can also call it a non-fractional number. This includes numbers like 0, 1, 99999, -99999, -1 and -0.
The Regular Expression that covers this validation is:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)$/

Test This Regex

As you probably noticed, I have also included -0 as a valid number. But, some may argue with this usage, and tell that this is not a real number (you can read more about Signed Zero here). So, if you want to exclude this number from this regex, here's what you should use instead:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(?<!-0)$/

Test This Regex

All I have added is (?<!-0), which means not to include -0 before this assertion. This (?<!...) assertion called negative lookbehind, which means that any phrase replaces the ... should not appear before this assertion. Lookbehind has limitations, like the phrase cannot include quantifiers. That's why for some cases I'll be using Lookahead instead, which is the same, but in the opposite way.

Many regex flavors, including those used by Perl and Python, only allow fixed-length strings. You can use literal text, character escapes, Unicode escapes other than \X, and character classes. You cannot use quantifiers or backreferences. You can use alternation, but only if all alternatives have the same length. These flavors evaluate lookbehind by first stepping back through the subject string for as many characters as the lookbehind needs, and then attempting the regex inside the lookbehind from left to right.

You can read more bout Lookaround assertions here.

Fractional Numbers

Positive

This number is usually called unsigned float or unsigned double, but you can also call it a positive fractional number, include zero. This includes numbers like 0, 1, 0.0, 0.1, 1.0, 99999.000001, 5.10.
The Regular Expression that covers this validation is:

/^(0|[1-9]\d*)(\.\d+)?$/

Test This Regex

Some may say, that numbers like .1, .0 and .00651 (same as 0.1, 0.0 and 0.00651 respectively) are also valid fractional numbers, and I cannot disagree with them. So here is a regex that is additionally supports this format:

/^(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)$/

Test This Regex

Negative and Positive

This number is usually called signed float or signed double, but you can also call it a fractional number. This includes numbers like 0, 1, 0.0, 0.1, 1.0, 99999.000001, 5.10, -0, -1, -0.0, -0.1, -99999.000001, 5.10.
The Regular Expression that covers this validation is:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(\.\d+)?$/

Test This Regex

For non -0 believers:

/^(?!-0(\.0+)?$)-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(\.\d+)?$/

Test This Regex

For those who want to support also the invisible zero representations, like .1, -.1, use the following regex:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)$/

Test This Regex

The combination of non -0 believers and invisible zero believers, use this regex:

/^(?!-0?(\.0+)?$)-?(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)$/

Test This Regex

Numbers with a Scientific Notation (AKA Exponential Notation)

Some may want to support in their validations, numbers with a scientific character e, which is by the way, an absolutely valid number, it is created for shortly represent a very long numbers. You can read more about Scientific Notation here. These numbers are usually looks like 1e3 (which is 1000), 1e-3 (which is 0.001) and are fully supported by many major programming languages (e.g. JavaScript). You can test it by checking if the expression '1e3'==1000 returns true.
I will divide the support for all the above sections, including numbers with scientific notation.

Regular Numbers

Whole positive number regex validation, supports numbers like 6e4, 16e-10, 0e0 but also regular numbers like 0, 11:

/^(0|[1-9]\d*)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Whole positive and negative number regex validation, supports numbers like -6e4, -16e-10, -0e0 but also regular numbers like -0, -11 and all the whole positive numbers above:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Whole positive and negative number regex validation for non -0 believers, same as the above, except now it forbids numbers like -0, -0e0, -0e5 and -0e-6:

/^(?!-0)-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Fractional Numbers

Positive number regex validation, supports also the whole numbers above, plus numbers like 0.1e3, 56.0e-3, 0.0e10 and 1.010e0:

/^(0|[1-9]\d*)(\.\d+)?(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Positive number with invisible zero support regex validation, supports also the above positive numbers, in addition numbers like .1e3, .0e0, .0e-5 and .1e-7:

/^(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Negative and positive number regex validation, supports the positive numbers above, but also numbers like -0e3, -0.1e0, -56.0e-3 and -0.0e10:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(\.\d+)?(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Negative and positive number regex validation fro non -0 believers, same as the above, except now it forbids numbers like -0, -0.00000, -0.0e0, -0.00000e5 and -0e-6:

/^(?!-0(\.0+)?(e|$))-?(0|[1-9]\d*)(\.\d+)?(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Negative and positive number with invisible zero support regex validation, supports also the above positive and negative numbers, in addition numbers like -.1e3, -.0e0, -.0e-5 and -.1e-7:

/^-?(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Negative and positive number with the combination of non -0 believers and invisible zero believers, same as the above, but forbids numbers like -.0e0, -.0000e15 and -.0e-19:

/^(?!-0?(\.0+)?(e|$))-?(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?$/i

Test This Regex

Numbers with Hexadecimal Representation

In many programming languages, string representation of hexadecimal number like 0x4F7A may be easily cast to decimal number 20346.
Thus, one may want to support it in his validation script.
The following Regular Expression supports only hexadecimal numbers representations:

/^0x[0-9a-f]+$/i

Test This Regex

All Permutations

These final Regular Expressions, support the invisible zero numbers.

Signed Zero Believers

/^(-?(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?|0x[0-9a-f]+)$/i

Test This Regex

Non Signed Zero Believers

/^((?!-0?(\.0+)?(e|$))-?(0|[1-9]\d*)?(\.\d+)?(?<=\d)(e-?(0|[1-9]\d*))?|0x[0-9a-f]+)$/i

Test This Regex

Hope I covered all number permutations that are supported in many programming languages.
Good luck!

Oh, forgot to mention, that those who want to validate a number includes a thousand separator, you should clean all the commas (,) first, as there may be any type of separator out there, you can't actually cover them all.
But you can remove them first, before the number validation:

//JavaScript
function clearSeparators(number)
{
    return number.replace(/,/g,'');
}

Similar post on my blog.

Solution 3:

I had the same problem, but I also wanted ".25" to be a valid decimal number. Here is my solution using JavaScript:

function isNumber(v) {
  // [0-9]* Zero or more digits between 0 and 9  (This allows .25 to be considered valid.)
  // ()? Matches 0 or 1 things in the parentheses.  (Allows for an optional decimal point)
  // Decimal point escaped with \.
  // If a decimal point does exist, it must be followed by 1 or more digits [0-9]
  // \d and [0-9] are equivalent 
  // ^ and $ anchor the endpoints so tthe whole string must match.
  return v.trim().length > 0 && v.trim().match(/^[0-9]*(\.[0-9]+)?$/);
}

Where my trim() method is

String.prototype.trim = function() {
  return this.replace(/(^\s*|\s*$)/g, "");
};

Matthew DesVoigne

Solution 4:

I've tested all given regexes but unfortunately none of them pass those tests:

    String []goodNums={"3","-3","0","0.0","1.0","0.1"};
    String []badNums={"001","-00.2",".3","3.","a",""," ","-"," -1","--1","-.1","-0", "2..3", "2-", "2...3", "2.4.3", "5-6-7"};

Here is the best I wrote that pass all those tests:

"^(-?0[.]\\d+)$|^(-?[1-9]+\\d*([.]\\d+)?)$|^0$"