topic Re: Constraint or validation rule to check that text field matches a pattern? in Attribute Rules Questions

Constraint or validation rule to check that text field matches a pattern?

AlfredBaldenweck — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 23:59:25 GMT

Basically, I'd like to enforce a text field to follow a pattern like [A-Z]{4}\s{4}\d+, to use the regex for it. (Four letters followed by 4 whitespace chars, followed by 1 or more digits

Has anyone had any luck doing this?

Re: Constraint or validation rule to check that text field matches a pattern?

Jake_S — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 17:19:58 GMT

@AlfredBaldenweck

Give this a go. I used this as the testing value

DDDD 1212121212

/* Arcade Constraint Rule: Checks if a field matches the pattern: - Four letters (A-Z, case-insensitive) - Four whitespace characters - One or more digits Usage: Replace $feature.Name with your actual field name. */ var value = $feature.Name; // Check if value is empty if (IsEmpty(value)) { return false; } // Check length: at least 9 (4 letters + 4 spaces + 1 digit) if (Count(value) < 9) { return false; } // Check first 4 are letters for (var i = 0; i < 4; i++) { var ch = Mid(value, i, 1); if (Find(Upper(ch), "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ") == -1) { return false; } } // Check next 4 are whitespace for (var i = 4; i < 8; i++) { if (Mid(value, i, 1) != " ") { return false; } } // Check remaining are digits for (var i = 8; i < Count(value); i++) { var ch = Mid(value, i, 1); if (Find(ch, "0123456789") == -1) { return false; } } return true;

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Re: Constraint or validation rule to check that text field matches a pattern?

JayCary — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 17:43:00 GMT

Not an Arcade-based solution, but the Data Reviewer extension's Regular Expression check can be used to create validation attribute rules to evaluate string formatting.

Re: Constraint or validation rule to check that text field matches a pattern?

AlfredBaldenweck — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 22:05:40 GMT

This worked pretty well, but is unfortunately more involved than I was hoping.

@JayCary 's suggestion of using Data Reviewer also worked out ok, but has its own set of drawbacks.

Dropping this link to a relevant Idea Arcade: Regular Expression Support - Esri Community to add regex to Arcade.

Thanks!