R Language Regular Expressions (regex) Validate US phone numbers
Example
The following regular expression:
us.phones.regex <- "^\\s*(\\+\\s*1(-?|\\s+))*[0-9]{3}\\s*-?\\s*[0-9]{3}\\s*-?\\s*[0-9]{4}$"
Validates a phone number in the form of: +1-xxx-xxx-xxxx, including optional leading/trailing blanks at the beginning/end of each group of numbers, but not in the middle, for example: +1-xxx-xxx-xx xx is not valid. The - delimiter can be replaced by blanks: xxx xxx xxx or without delimiter: xxxxxxxxxx. The +1 prefix is optional.
Let's check it:
us.phones.regex <- "^\\s*(\\+\\s*1(-?|\\s+))*[0-9]{3}\\s*-?\\s*[0-9]{3}\\s*-?\\s*[0-9]{4}$"
phones.OK <- c("305-123-4567", "305 123 4567", "+1-786-123-4567",
"+1 786 123 4567", "7861234567", "786 - 123 4567", "+ 1 786 - 123 4567")
phones.NOK <- c("124-456-78901", "124-456-789", "124-456-78 90",
"124-45 6-7890", "12 4-456-7890")
Valid cases:
> grepl(us.phones.regex, phones.OK)
[1] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE
>
Invalid cases:
> grepl(us.phones.regex, phones.NOK)
[1] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
>
Note:
\\sMatches any space, tab or newline character
