Regex counting string characters using Match

Question

I need to check if the string contains exactly 5 characters. If so I need to return true.

string name = "Perry";

I need to only use regex here.

 var re = Regex.Match(name, "^.{1,5}$");

However, this returns true if the characters are in range 1 and 5. What I expect is for the result to return true only if it contains 5 characters. how can i do this ?

Answer 1

^.{1,5}$ mean your string can contains from 1 to 5 char. You can use ^.{5}$ for exactly 5 chars.

Answer 2

Regex.IsMatch("Perry", "^.{5}$");

Answer 3

I guess, you can simply do this:

string name = "Perry";
if(name.Length == 5)

.{5} will match any character of 5 length. If you only want alphanumeric characters, then can use:

^[A-Za-z0-9]{5}$

Answer 4

What I expect is for the result to return true only if it contains 5 characters.

But which characters are valid? Is \\n a valid character here?
If yes; then use a regex like ^[\\S\\s]{5}$ instead

^         asserts position at start of the string
[\S\s]    matches any whitespace or non-whitespace character 
{5}       matches exactly 5 times
$         asserts position at the end of the string

Some other options those may make sense are:

 . matches any character (except for line terminators) ([\\r\\f\\v] are also valid here) \\w matches any word character (equal to [a-zA-Z0-9_]) -> recommended \\S matches any non-whitespace character (equal to [^\\r\\n\\t\\f\\v ])