REGEXP_LIKE - Find pattern containing special character

Question

I need to find if a column value contains the following pattern:

513-2400-23 - Valid
513-PBS-231 - Valid
521-PB-21 - Valid
52-12-21 - Valid
513-2321 - Not Valid

I have tried the following version and many other but they are working for one case but not for other.

SELECT CASE
    WHEN REGEXP_LIKE('B12-23-43', '.-.-.') THEN 'Y'
    ELSE 'N' END FROM DUAL;

Answer 1

Assuming that valid pattern requires exactly two dashes, this should work:

SELECT CASE
    WHEN REGEXP_LIKE('B12-23-43', '^[^-]+-[^-]+-[^-]+$') THEN 'Y'
    ELSE 'N' END FROM DUAL;

The pattern requires the string to start in one or more non-dashes, then to have a dash, then some more non-dash characters, and finally some more non-dash characters.

Demo on sqlfiddle.

Answer 2

Select Case WHEN REGEXP_LIKE('B12-23-43', 
              '^[[:alnum:]]{1,}-[[:alnum:]]{1,}-[[:alnum:]]{1,}$') THEN 'Y'
       ELSE 'N' END 
FROM DUAL;

UPDATE

To also cover cases such as this one: 544-445-PBBTS-24.3 , it could be extended as shown below:

Select Case When 
   Regexp_Like('B12-23-43', 
   '^([[:alnum:]]{1,}-){2}[[:alnum:]]{1,}(-[[:alnum:]]{1,}\.[[:alnum:]]{1,})?$') 
   THEN 'Y'
   ELSE 'N' END 
FROM DUAL;

Answer 3

SELECT CASE
    WHEN (LEN('B12-23-43') - LEN(REPLACE('B12-23-43', '-', '')) = 2) THEN 'Y'
    ELSE 'N' END FROM DUAL;