Python program to verify that a string only contains letters, numbers, underscores and dashes

Prerequisite: Regular Expression in Python

Given a string, we have to find whether the string contains any letters, numbers, underscores, and dashes or not. It is usually used for verifying username and password validity. For example, the user has a string for the username of a person and the user doesn’t want the username to have any special characters such as @, $, etc. 

Let’s see the different methods for solving this task:

Method 1: Using Regular Expression.

There is a function in the regular expression library(re) that compares two string for us. re.match(pattern, string) is a function that returns an object, to find whether a match is find or not we have to typecast it into boolean. 

Syntax: re.match(pattern, string) 

Parameters:

• pattern: the pattern against which you want to check 
• string: the string you want to check for the pattern 

Return: Match object 

Let’s see an example:

Example 1:

Python3

# import library
import re

# make a pattern
pattern = "^[A-Za-z0-9_-]*$"

# input
string = "G33ks_F0r_Geeks"

# convert match object
# into boolean values
state = bool(re.match(pattern, string))

print(state)

Output:

True

Example 2:

Python3

# import library
import re

print(bool(re.match("^[A-Za-z0-9_-]*$",
                    'ValidString12-_')))

print(bool(re.match("^[A-Za-z0-9_-]*$",
                    'inv@lidstring')))

Output:

True
False

Method 2: Using Set.

Set is built-in data-type in Python. We are using issubset() function of set that returns True if all characters of a set are present in a given set Otherwise False.

Syntax: set_name.issubset(set)
Parameters: 

• set: Represents that set in which the subset has to be searched 

Return: boolean value

Let’s see an example:
Example 1:

Python3

# create a set of allowed characters
allowed_chars = set(("0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_-"))

# input string
string = "inv@lid"

# convert string into set of characters
validation = set((string))

# check condition
if validation.issubset(allowed_chars):
    print("True")

else:
    print ("False")

Output:

False

Example 2:

Python3

allowed_chars = set("0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_-")

string = "__Val1d__"

validation = set((string))

if validation.issubset(allowed_chars):
    print("True")

else:
    print ("False")

Output:

True