Examples of text patterns

Predefined patterns

You can quickly create and modify display, edit, and validation patterns to format data input values (user input or bound data) by selecting predefined patterns from the Select Type list on the Display tab in the Patterns dialog box (Object palette > Patterns). For example, the Postal Code (United Kingdom) option provides the pattern A9A 9A9|AA9A 9A9, such that an input value of KB1C3R2 produces a formatted value of KB1C 3R2.

Custom patterns

The following table shows some custom patterns that you can define in the Pattern box for formatting input values (user input or bound data) using a display pattern.

In the next example, a serial number requires input like this: three alphabetic characters, followed by four digits, followed by a single character of any type. A suitable text pattern would be as follows:

AAA-9999-X

The following table below shows the results of converting some example input values (user input or bound data) into raw values using an edit pattern or data pattern.

In the last example, because the input value 123-4567-8 does not match the pattern, the resulting raw value is an empty string.