Pattern Library

The pattern library defines regular expressions and string display formats that can be used by all systems. Each regular expression or display format has a key that can be referenced in the system configuration files. The key and their accociated patterns are defined in the PatternLibrary.xml file in the TurnObjects config folder.

Display Formats

Display formats help to format the object data in a specified way. The DisplayFormatId of the schema property is used to specify how the value will be displayed. A good example of using a display format is to apply one to a date. A formater like {0:d} will fomat the date to a short form (MM/DD/YYYY). The following tables show how to use display formatting to represent data.

Dates

Specifier	Type	Example (Passed System.DateTime.Now)
d	Short date	03/25/1975
D	Long date	March 25, 1975
t	Short time	11:58 PM
T	Long time	23:58:00 PM
f	Full date & time	March 25, 1975 23:58 PM
F	Full date & time (long)	March 25, 1975 23:58:00 PM
g	Default date & time	03/25/1975 11:58 PM
G	Default date & time (long)	03/25/1975 11:58:00 PM
M	Month day pattern	March 25
r	RFC1123 date string	Tue, 25 mar 1975 23:58:00 GMT
s	Sortable date string	1975-03-25T23:58:00
u	Universal sortable, local time	1975-03-25 23:58:00Z
U	Universal sortable, GMT	March 25, 1975 23:58:00 AM
Y	Year month pattern	March, 1975

Date Formatting

Specifier	Type	Example	Example Output
dd	Day	{0:dd}	25
ddd	Day name	{0:ddd}	Mon
dddd	Full day name	{0:dddd}	Monday
f, ff, …	Second fractions	{0:fff}	432
gg, …	Era	{0:gg}	A.D.
hh	2 digit hour	{0:hh}	12
HH	2 digit hour, 24hr format	{0:HH}	24
mm	Minute 00-59	{0:mm}	58
MM	Month 01-12	{0:MM}	3
MMM	Month abbreviation	{0:MMM}	Mar
MMMM	Full month name	{0:MMMM}	march
ss	Seconds 00-59	{0:ss}	33
tt	AM or PM	{0:tt}	PM
yy	Year, 2 digits	{0:yy}	07
yyyy	Year	{0:yyyy}	2007
zz	Timezone offset, 2 digits	{0:zz}	-06
zzz	Full timezone offset	{0:zzz}	-06:00
:	Separator	{0:hh:mm:ss}	11:58:00
/	Separator	{0:dd/MM/yyyy}	03/25/1975

Numbers

Specifier	Type	Format	Output (Passed Double 1.33)	Output (Passed Int -13200)
c	Currency	{0:c}	$1.33	-$13,200
d	Decimal (Whole number)	{0:d}	System.FormatException	-13200
e	Scientific	{0:e}	1.330000e+000	-1.320000e+004
f	Fixed point	{0:f}	1.33	-13200.00
g	General	{0:g}	1.33	-13200
n	Number with commas for thousands	{0:n}	1.33	-13,200
r	Round trippable	{0:r}	1.33	System.FormatException
x	Hexadecimal	{0:x4}	System.FormatException	3390

Number Formatting

Specifier	Type	Example	Output (Passed Double 1700.33)	Note
0	Zero placeholder	{0:00.0000}	1700.3300	Pads with zeroes.
#	Digit placeholder	{0:(#).##}	(1700).33
.	Decimal point	{0:0.0}	1700.3
,	Thousand separator	{0:0,0}	1,700	Must be between two zeroes.
,.	Number scaling	{0:0,.}	2	Comma adjacent to Period scales by 1000.
%	Percent	{0:0%}	170033%	Multiplies by 100, adds % sign.
e	Exponent placeholder	{0:00e+0}	17e+2	Many exponent formats available.
;	Group separator	see below

Enumerators

Specifier	Type
g	Default (Flag names if available, otherwise decimal)
f	Flags always
d	Integer always
x	Eight digit hex.

Regular Expressions

A regular expression is a string that describes or matches a set of strings. The TurnObjects system uses regular expressions to validate user input by ensuring it matches a desired format. The InputRegExId for each property can be used to identify the regular expression in the pattern library that will be used to validate the input. A common use for a regular expression is to match up strings that should represent email addresses. A basic regular expression for email would look like the following:

\w+([-+.']\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*

Metacharacters

A character class is a set of characters that will find a match if any one of the characters included in the set matches.

MChar	Definition
^	Start of a string.
$	End of a string.
.	Any character (except \n newline)
\|	Alternation.
{...}	Explicit quantifier notation.
[...]	Explicit set of characters to match.
(...)	Logical grouping of part of an expression.
*	0 or more of previous expression.
+	1 or more of previous expression.
?	0 or 1 of previous expression; also forces minimal matching when an expression might match several strings within a search string.
\	Preceding one of the above, it makes it a literal instead of a special character. Preceding a special matching character, see below.

Character Class

Char	Description
	Matches any character except \n. If modified by the Singleline option, a period character matches any character.
[abc]	Matches any single character included in the specified set of characters.
[^abc]	Matches any single character not in the specified set of characters.
[0-9a-fA-F]	Use of a hyphen (–) allows specification of contiguous character ranges.
\p{name}	Matches any character in the named character class specified by {name}.
\P{name}	Matches text not included in groups and block ranges specified in {name}.
\w	Matches any word character.
\W	Matches any nonword character.
\s	Matches any white-space character.
\S	Matches any non-white-space character.
\d	Matches any decimal digit.
\D	Matches any nondigit.

Articles found by doing a web search on regular expression or regex will provided a better understanging and many examples of using regular expressions.