Different ways to display mobile phone numbers? - formatting

I want to give my users the ability to choose how their phone numbers are formatted within my software...
Here in Australia I normally display landline phones like:
(07) 5588 2299
+61 7 5588 2299 (international)
And mobile (cell) phones like:
0422 444 666
+61 4 22 444 666 (international)
Is there any standard format for phone numbers in different countries (and even here in Australia if I have it wrong) that I could use as a template?
Thanks in advance!

My original thought was to allow them to specify a mask and a number, sort of like a printf format string method.
That way the mask +99 9 999 9999 with the number 61755882299 would format as +61 7 558 82299.
But then I reconsidered: if you want to give users formatting ability over their mobile phone numbers, just provide a free text entry field.
Let them enter whatever they want. They may want to enter 1-800-BITE-ME or any number of variations you won't have thought of :-)
That will only ever become a problem if you need to use the phone numbers from within your code and, even then, you could just strip out the non-digit characters first (after possibly converting letters to digits first).

However, allowing phone numbers in multiple countries can be ambiguous sometimes.
For example, 61755882299 can be read as +61 7 5588 2299 in Australia or 617-558-8229 in the United States (where the extra 9 is disregarded; 617 is a valid U.S. area code).
(It is allowable to have extra numbers in a phone number; this is a common practice if letters are used instead of numbers; for example: 1-800-MATTRESS.)
In the U.S., the formatting of mobile and landline phone numbers does not differ. Usually numbers are separated by hyphens, but they can also be separated by periods and spaces, and the area code can be enclosed in parentheses:
Examples:
888-555-1234
888.555.1234
888 555-1234
(888) 555-1234

Related

What is the difference in presentation between hexadecimal ASCII And hexadecimal number

I have two questions:
What is the difference in presentation between hexadecimal ASCII And hexadecimal number?
I mean that when we say
var db 31H
How we can find out if we want to say Character a or we want to say number 31H.
Why this application goes like this?
1- a db 4 dup(41h)
2- b dw 2 dup(4141h)
I thought that this two lines will be run in the same way but in the second line when I want to see the variables they will be 8 8bits and in each one is number 41h.
But it must something wrong because dw is 2 8 bits and we are saying make 2 of 2 of 8 bits and it must be 4 8 bits not 8 8 bits.
The answer to the first question is simple: in a computer's memory, there is no ASCII, no numbers, no images ... there is just bits. 31H represents the string of bits 00110001; nothing more, nothing less.
It's only when you do something with those bits (display them to a screen, use them in a mathematical operation, etc) that you interpret it as meaning 1 (which it would in ASCII), or a (in some other character encoding), or 49 (as a decimal number), or a particular shade of blue in your colour palette.

Validate UK postcode using regular expression in oracle

Below is the list of valid postcodes:
A1 1AA
A11 1AA
AA1 1AA
AA11 1AA
A1A 1AA
BFPO 1
BFPO 11
BFPO 111
I tried with (([A-Z]{1,2}[0-9]{1,2})\ ([0-9][A-Z]{2}))|(GIR\ 0AA)$ but it is not working. Could you please help me with proper query to validate all the postcode formats.
First, rather than guessing based on the set of data at hand, let's look at what UK postcodes are.
EC1V 9HQ
The first one or two letters is the postcode area and it identifies the main Royal Mail sorting office which will process the mail. In this case EC would go to the Mount Pleasant sorting office in London.
The second part is usually just one or two numbers but for some parts of London it can be a number and a letter. This is the postcode district and tells the sorting office which delivery office the mail should go to.
This third part is the sector and is usually just one number. This tells the delivery office which local area or neighbourhood the mail should go to.
The final part of the postcode is the unit code which is always two letters. This identifies a group of up to 80 addresses and tells the delivery office which postal route (or walk) will deliver the item.
Digesting that...
1 or 2 letters.
A number and maybe an alphanumeric.
A space.
"Usually" a number, but I can't find any instances otherwise.
2 letters.
\A[[:alpha:]]{1,2}\d[[:alnum:]]? \d[[:alpha:]]{2}\z
We can't use \w because that contains an underscore.
I used the more exact \A and \z over ^ and $ because \A and \z match the exact beginning and end of the string, whereas ^ and $ match the beginning and end of a line. $ in particular is tolerant of a trailing newline.
Of course, there are special cases. XXXX 1ZZ for various overseas territories, XXXX is enumerated.
\A(ASCN|STHL|TDCU|BBND|BIQQ|FIQQ|PCRN|SIQQ|TKCA) 1ZZ\z
Then a couple of really special cases.
GIR 0AA for Girobank.
AI-2640 for Anguilla.
\A(AI-2640|GIR 0AA)\z
Put them all together into one big (...|...|...) mess. It's good to build the query in three pieces and put it together with the x modifier to ignore whitespace.
REGEXP_LIKE(
postcode,
'\A
(
[[:alpha:]]{1,2}\d[[:alnum:]]?\ \d[[:alpha:]]{2}\z |
(ASCN|STHL|TDCU|BBND|BIQQ|FIQQ|PCRN|SIQQ|TKCA)\ 1ZZ |
(AI-2640|GIR\ 0AA)
)
\z',
'x'
)
Or you can make the basic regex less strict and accept 2-4 alphanumerics for the first part. Then there's only the special case for Anguilla to worry about.
\A([[:alnum:]]{2,4} \d[[:alpha:]]{2}|AI-2640)\z
On the downside, this will let in post codes that don't exist. On the up side, you don't have to keep tweaking for additional special cases. That's probably fine for this level of filtering.

Finding the ascii value for shift-in shift-out in sql?

I've some records which are really messed up.
My team lead told me to find out the position of characters with ascii value 14 and 15.
I've a query
SELECT CHARINDEX(CHAR(14),X_CUSTOMER_COMMENTS)
FROM vp_service_requests;
SELECT CHARINDEX(CHAR(15),X_CUSTOMER_COMMENTS)
FROM vp_service_requests;
which returns 0 because i wasn't able to find char with 14 and 15 ascii value after google
search i found 14 and 15 ascii value are for shift in and shift out
how this represents on keyboard so i can try for it with CHAR(14) function.
As a holdover from the old DOS days, Windows still allows you to enter certain old ASCII keys from the keyboard by pressing and holding the ALT key, followed by the three-digit code you wish to enter (from the 10-key pad, not the numeric row atop the keyboard), eg for 14, type ALT-014.
However, some of the lower-level codes are inherited from old terminal functions, eg ASCII 7 is a bell, 8 is a backspace, eg, and rather that typing a character, they cause the cursor to behave a certain way or induce an application to respond in a defined manner. You can embed a CHAR(XX) value for testing simply by concatenating the value into a string and INSERTing it into your test table.
It should be Ctrl-N and Ctrl-O although I doubt this will help.
Try loading the records into a good editor and look at them in HEX. Weird characters should stick out like a sore thumb

Find all variations of letters in a word in Vb.net

In a program used to find words from random scrabble letters how do you loop through each of the possible combinations of letters? ie: abc acb bac bca cab cba
What you're trying to do here is permute the set of characters contained within the string.
There's a question here about it:
Find string permutation including the single character using C# or F#

ASP Regular Expression for UK Telephone format in VB.net

I want regular expression validator for my telephone field in VB.net. Please see the requirement below:
Telephone format should be (+)xx-(0)xxxx-xxxxxx ext xxxx (Optional) example my number would appear as 44-7966-591739 Screen would be formatted to show +44-(0)7966-591739 ext
Please suggest.
Best Regards,
Yuv
+44-(0)7966-591739
The (0) is not valid in phone number display. Remove it.
It's +44 7966 591739 or 07966 591739.
The RegEx pattern is inefficient in multiple ways:
(\d{4}|\d{3})
The above simplifies to:
\d{3,4}
There are bigger problems:
^(((+44\s?\d{4}|(?0\d{4})?)\s?\d{3}\s?\d{3})|((+44\s?\d{3}|(?0\d{3})?)\s?\d{3}\s?\d{4})|((+44\s?\d{2}|(?0\d{2})?)\s?\d{4}\s?\d{4}))(\s?#(\d{4}|\d{3}))?$
Having found the leading +44 or leading 0 once, why keep on searching for it again and again?
^((+44\s?..|0..).....|(+44\s?..|0..).....|(+44\s?..|0..).....)
simplifies to
^(+44\s?|0)(.. .....|.. .....|.. .....)
However, the above pattern caters only for UK 4+6, 3+7 and 2+8 format numbers and not for 3+6, 4+5, 5+5 and 5+4 format numbers.
The pattern is inadequate.
Phone number validation and formatting needs to be broken down into separate steps. Allow a wide range of input formats, extract the vital digits and throw away the various dial prefixes, then strictly format the remaining number in international or national format.
For London numbers, the correct format with spaces is:
+44 20 3555 7890 or 020 3555 7890 or (020) 3555 7890
and without spaces:
+442035557890 or 02035557890.
(0) in parentheses is NEVER valid. Do not use it.
UK phone numbers use a variety of formats: 2+8, 3+7, 3+6, 4+6, 4+5, 5+5, 5+4. Some users don't know which format goes with which number range and might use the wrong one on input. Let them do that; you're interested in the DIGITS.
Step 1: Check the input format looks valid
Make sure that the input looks like a UK phone number. Accept various dial prefixes, +44, 011 44, 00 44 with or without parentheses, hyphens or spaces; or national format with a leading 0. Let the user use any format they want for the remainder of the number: (020) 3555 7788 or 00 (44) 203 555 7788 or 02035-557-788 even if it is the wrong format for that particular number. Don't worry about unbalanced parentheses. The important part of the input is making sure it's the correct number of digits. Punctuation and spaces don't matter.
^\(?(?:(?:0(?:0|11)\)?[\s-]?\(?|\+)44\)?[\s-]?\(?(?:0\)?[\s-]?\(?)?|0)(?:\d{5}\)?[\s-]?\d{4,5}|\d{4}\)?[\s-]?(?:\d{5}|\d{3}[\s-]?\d{3})|\d{3}\)?[\s-]?\d{3}[\s-]?\d{3,4}|\d{2}\)?[\s-]?\d{4}[\s-]?\d{4}|8(?:00[\s-]?11[\s-]?11|45[\s-]?46[\s-]?4\d))(?:(?:[\s-]?(?:x|ext\.?\s?|\#)\d+)?)$
The above pattern matches optional opening parentheses, followed by 00 or 011 and optional closing parentheses, followed by an optional space or hyphen, followed by optional opening parentheses. Alternatively, the initial opening parentheses are followed by a literal + without a following space or hyphen. Any of the previous two options are then followed by 44 with optional closing parentheses, followed by optional space or hyphen, followed by optional 0 in optional parentheses, followed by optional space or hyphen, followed by optional opening parentheses (international format). Alternatively, the pattern matches optional initial opening parentheses followed by the 0 trunk code (national format).
The previous part is then followed by the NDC (area code) and the subscriber phone number in 2+8, 3+7, 3+6, 4+6, 4+5, 5+5 or 5+4 format with or without spaces and/or hyphens. This also includes provision for optional closing parentheses and/or optional space or hyphen after where the user thinks the area code ends and the local subscriber number begins. The pattern allows any format to be used with any GB number. The display format must be corrected by later logic if the wrong format for this number has been used by the user on input.
The pattern ends with an optional extension number arranged as an optional space or hyphen followed by x, ext and optional period, or #, followed by the extension number digits. The entire pattern does not bother to check for balanced parentheses as these will be removed from the number in the next step.
At this point you don't care whether the number begins 01 or 07 or something else. You don't care whether it's a valid area code. Later steps will deal with those issues.
Step 2: Extract the NSN so it can be checked in more detail for length and range
After checking the input looks like a GB telephone number using the pattern above, the next step is to extract the NSN part so that it can be checked in greater detail for validity and then formatted in the right way for the applicable number range.
^\(?(?:(?:0(?:0|11)\)?[\s-]?\(?|\+)(44)\)?[\s-]?\(?(?:0\)?[\s-]?\(?)?|0)([1-9]\d{1,4}\)?[\s\d-]+)(?:((?:x|ext\.?\s?|\#)\d+)?)$
Use the above pattern to extract the '44' from $1 to know that international format was used, otherwise assume national format if $1 is null.
Extract the optional extension number details from $3 and store them for later use.
Extract the NSN (including spaces, hyphens and parentheses) from $2.
Step 3: Validate the NSN
Remove the spaces, hyphens and parentheses from $2 and use further RegEx patterns to check the length and range and identify the number type.
These patterns will be much simpler, since they will not have to deal with various dial prefixes or country codes.
The pattern to match valid mobile numbers is therefore as simple as
^7([45789]\d{2}|624)\d{6}$
Premium rate is
^9[018]\d{8}$
There will be a number of other patterns for each number type: landlines, business rate, non-geographic, VoIP, etc.
By breaking the problem into several steps, a very wide range of input formats can be allowed, and the number range and length for the NSN checked in very great detail.
Step 4: Store the number
Once the NSN has been extracted and validated, store the number with country code and all the other digits with no spaces or punctuation, e.g. 442035557788.
Step 5: Format the number for display
Another set of simple rules can be used to format the number with the requisite +44 or 0 added at the beginning.
The rule for numbers beginning 03 is
^44(3\d{2})(\d{3])(\d{4})$
formatted as
0$1 $2 $3 or as +44 $1 $2 $3
and for numbers beginning 02 is
^44(2\d)(\d{4})(\d{4})$
formatted as
(0$1) $2 $3 or as +44 $1 $2 $3
The full list is quite long. I could copy and paste it all into this thread, but it would be hard to maintain that information in multiple places over time. For the present the complete list can be found at: http://aa-asterisk.org.uk/index.php/Regular_Expressions_for_Validating_and_Formatting_GB_Telephone_Numbers
For validation:
As bobince points out, you should be flexible with phone numbers because there are so many ways to enter them.
One simple yet effective way to validate the value is first strip all non-numeric values, then make sure it is at least 11 digits long, and - if you're limiting to UK numbers - then check it starts with either 0 or 44.
I can't be bothered looking up vb.net syntax, but something along the lines of this:
if Phone.replaceAll('\D','').length < 11
// Invalid Number
endif;
(The \D is regex for anything not 0-9.)
To format a number as requested, assuming you've got a relatively fixed input that you want to display to a page, something like this might work:
replace:
(\d{2,3})\D*0?\D*(\d{4})\D*(\d{5})\D*(\d*)
with:
+$1-(0)$2-$3 ext $4
That's fairly flexible but wont accept any old phone number. It currently required an international code at the start, and I'm not quite sure on the rules of them to know if it's going to work perfectly, but it might be good enough for what you need.
An explanation of that regex, in regex comment mode (so it can be used directly as a regex if necessary):
(?x) # enable regex comment mode (whitespace ignored, hashes start comments)
# international code:
(\d{2,3}) # matches 3 or 2 digits; captured to group 1.
# optional 0 with potental spaces dashes or parens:
\D* # matches as many non-digits as possible, none required.
0? # optionally match a zero
\D* # matches as many non-digits as possible, none required.
# main part of number:
(\d{4}) # match 4 digits; captured to group 2
\D* # matches as many non-digits as possible, none required.
(\d{5}) # match 5 digits; captured to group 3.
# optional prefix:
\D* # matches as many non-digits as possible, none required.
(\d*) # match as many digits as possible, none required; captured to group 4.
Never include a (0) in parentheses in the international format.
ITU E.123 warns against it: http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-E.123-200102-I/en
as does: http://revk.www.me.uk/2009/09/it-is-not-44-0207-123-4567.html