Regex for Azure blob containers

Question

Trying to create a regex to use in the following code to ensure my input conforms to Azure blob container rules, but needing a regex means I have 2 problems.

Rules:

• Letters and numbers and hyphens only
• No spaces
• Must start with a letter or number

Not worried about lower case as I am going to .ToLower() it after this.

Tried this but it keeps $ and ^ so I must be doing something wrong?

Regex rgx = new Regex(@"^[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*$");

Answer 1

Try this instead:

        Regex regEx = new Regex("^[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9]|(\\-(?!\\-))){1,61}[a-z0-9]$|^\\$root$");
        var isContainerNameValid = regEx.IsMatch(containerName);

Source: Azure Portal --> New Container creation screen --> View Source :)

Answer 2

The latest version of the Azure Storage Library now contains this method:

   Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.NameValidator.ValidateContainerName(myContainerName);

If the name is not valid it will throw an ArgumentException.

Better than trying to make your own.