Re: Checking name convention

You can use a regular expression to look for the pattern, and an until loop to keep prompting the user until their input matches your desired pattern:

my $os_user = '&'; #stop warnings from yelling at you
print "OS username:";
until ($os_user =~ /^[A-Za-z]{3}\d{3}$/) {
  chomp($os_user = <>);
}
[download]

Comment on Re: Checking name convention Download Code

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Re^2: Checking name convention by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Feb 24, 2015 at 19:15 UTC
Because no `$` end-of-string anchor is used, the `/^[A-Za-z]{3}\d{3}/` match may allow something improper: `c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "my $os_user = 'foo9876543210'; $os_user =~ /^[A-Za-z]{3}\d{3}/ or die qq{bad user name: '$os_user'}; print qq{'$os_user' is ok by me!}; " 'foo9876543210' is ok by me!` [download] See above for a variation that avoids this problem. See also perlre, perlrequick, and perlretut. Give a man a fish: `<%-(-(-(-<`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Checking name convention by Stringer (Acolyte) on Feb 24, 2015 at 20:22 UTC
Woops, you're right. Updated it with the requisite anchor.	[reply]