[AccessD] Validation Rule and Hyphen

Found a solution:

Is Null Or Not Like "*[!a-z '-]*"

Not sure why this works and the other format doesn't but there you go.

Thanks for the prompter Lambert.

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Heenan, Lambert
Sent: Wednesday, 11 February 2015 10:00 a.m.
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Validation Rule and Hyphen

My regular expressions are a bit rusty, but isn't the hyphen a character
used to construct regular expressions? In which case to include it in your
validation you would need to escape the hyphen. Now what's the escape
character?


Lambert  


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of David Emerson
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 2:06 PM
To: AccessD
Subject: [AccessD] Validation Rule and Hyphen

Hi Listers,

I have a field for entering in a last name.  I want to restrict the
characters to letters, spaces, apostrophes, and hyphens.

In the Validation Rule I have:

Is Null Or Not Like "*[!a-z OR "" "" OR ""'"" OR ""-""]*"

This works fine except when I enter a hyphen into the field it is rejected.
I can enter letters, spaces, and apostrophes.  All other characters are
rejected.

Why are hyphens also rejected?

Regards

David Emerson
Dalyn Software Ltd
Wellington, New Zealand