Why doesn't [01-12] range work as expected?

Question

I\'m trying to use the range pattern [01-12] in regex to match two digit mm, but this doesn\'t work as expected.

Answer 1

The []s in a regex denote a character class. If no ranges are specified, it implicitly ors every character within it together. Thus, [abcde] is the same as (a|b|c|d|e), except that it doesn't capture anything; it will match any one of a, b, c, d, or e. All a range indicates is a set of characters; [ac-eg] says "match any one of: a; any character between c and e; or g". Thus, your match says "match any one of: 0; any character between 1 and 1 (i.e., just 1); or 2.

Your goal is evidently to specify a number range: any number between 01 and 12 written with two digits. In this specific case, you can match it with 0[1-9]|1[0-2]: either a 0 followed by any digit between 1 and 9, or a 1 followed by any digit between 0 and 2. In general, you can transform any number range into a valid regex in a similar manner. There may be a better option than regular expressions, however, or an existing function or module which can construct the regex for you. It depends on your language.