Check that the input only contains certain characters

Question

I need to check that my input string only contains alphabetic characters, asterisks, spaces, and tabs.

I tried this, but it doesn't work:

firstStr.matches(".*[a-zA-Z].*.*[\\t].*.*[\\s].*") 

Answer 1

Use this regex to check if string contains only alphabets, spaces, asterisks, tabs:

firstStr.matches("[a-zA-Z *\t]+")

You were close, but you needed a single character class.

Answer 2

I believe this should work:

[\\*\\t\\sa-zA-Z]+  //if you want to ensure that there is atleast 1 character in the string

[\\*\\t\\sa-zA-Z]*  //if it is ok to have 0 or more characters in the string

\\* will match an asterisk
\\t will match tab
\\s will match whitespace
a-zA-Z will match alphabetical chars
[...]+ ensures there are atleast one of the expression in the brackets
[...]* means there is 0 or more of the expression in the brackets