ORA-12728: invalid range in regular expression - sql

Question

I want to check if valid phone number is inserting in table, so my trigger code is here:
select start_index
into mob_index
from gmarg_mobile_operators
where START_INDEX = substr(:new.contact_info,0,3);
if (REGEXP_LIKE (:NEW.CONTACT_INFO,'^(?:'|| mob_index ||')[\-,\:]{0,1}[0-9][0-9][\-,\:]{0,1}[0-9][0-9][\-,\:]{0,1}[0-9][0-9]')) then
found := 1;
end if;
I've checked my regex: "^(?:555)[-,:]{0,1}[0-9][0-9][-,:]{0,1}[0-9][0-9][-,:]{0,1}[0-9][0-9]" on several online tools and it is correct.
When I run my trigger, it compiles successfully, but during inserting a row following error is shown:
insert into GMARG_CONTACTS
(CLINET_ID,CONTACT_INFO,contact_type_id)
values
(0,'555194117','Mobile')
Error report -
SQL Error: ORA-12728: invalid range in regular expression
ORA-06512: at "HR.GMARG_TRIGGER_CONTACT", line 12
ORA-04088: error during execution of trigger 'HR.GMARG_TRIGGER_CONTACT'
12728. 00000 - "invalid range in regular expression"
*Cause: An invalid range was found in the regular expression.
*Action: Ensure a valid range is being used.
So, if my regex is correct, why does oracle shows error?
I tried to find answer, or redifine my regex, but no forward steps...
thank you in advance

Answer 1

Regexp don't use \ to protect - in a bracket expression. You only have to put - as the first character, just after the opening bracket:
IF REGEXP_LIKE('--,,::', '[\-,:]*')
...
=> ORA-12728: invalid range in regular expression
If you're curious, when encountering [\-,:] Oracle understand: "any character in the range from \ to , or the character :". The reason why this raises an exception is \ appears to be after , according to their ASCII value. And Oracle don't accept range having a starting value after the ending one.
On the other hand:
IF REGEXP_LIKE('--,,::', '[-,:]*')
Works as expected.
As a side note, [-,:]{0,1} meaning "zero or one occurrence of - or , or :" could be written [-,:]?.