Two criterias and single regex for generic postal code

Question

I created a regex for postal code (non us countries) to include two criterias ..

• minimum 5 chars , max 10 chars
• should have only alpha numneric with only one space/hyphen in the middle

regex: ^([a-zA-Z0-9]{3,10}[ |-]{0,1}[a-zA-Z0-9]{0,7})(.{5,10})$

I'm not sure where this is going wrong, but this is not working

Answer 1

How about:

(?=^\w+[ -]\w+$)^[a-zA-Z0-9 -]{5,10}$

Demo: https://regex101.com/r/xqMq7o/2

Breakdown:

• ^[a-zA-Z0-9 -]{5,10}$ sets the pattern for the allowed chars and size. It could be alone if it wasn't for the space/hyphen requirement
• (?=^\w+[ -]\w+$) makes sure there's at least and at most one space/hyphen. (\w is OK to use because it includes a-zA-Z0-9 but not -. Alternatively, [^ -] could be used in its place.)