Hello all,

I've got an Access 2010 db and I'm trying to validate a first name, I'm trying to say that it should only contain letters, an apostrophe, and a hyphen, but I can't find anything that doesn't require you to snoop every key stroke...

Many thanks,

Ben

Regex validator? (You would probably need to do it through VBA)

Something like [a-zA-Z'-]+

I don't think you can snope a key stroke, only a completed field, otherwise every key press would fire validation

Cheers Finlay

That is a very simple one, you probably need a more comprehensive one though

For instance you wouldn't have a hyphen/apostrophe at the start or end character
It's early, not had enough tea and as a result the way you join them escapes me...

but it would be (in a laypersons notation with partial regex)...
[a-zA-Z] + (0...+ [a-zA-Z'-]+) + [a-zA-Z]
then x'x and x-x are valid but 'xx, xx- and 'x' aren't

The above does cover you for 2 letter names though... not sure if you could validate 1 letter names (or if they exist)