finding multiple chars in password

I just interacted with an authentication system that one of it password rules is not to repeat a certain character 3 or more times.  So it mad me think of how I would accomplish this validation if I wrote the code.

First thing that came to mind is a regular expressions (RE), i've tried and tried and couldn't figure out a RE that would solve any character repeated more than 3 times in a string.  I guess I'm not an expert in RE!  If anyone can figure this out, i'd appreciate knowing the RE.

Therefore, i moved my logic to just loop within a loop.  Example below.

<cfloop from="1" to="#len(variables.tmpPassword)#" index="pos">

    <cfset curChar = Mid(variables.tmpPassword,pos,1)>
    <cfset curCharCount = 0>
   
    <cfset curPos = FindNoCase(curChar,variables.tmpPassword)>
    <cfloop condition="#curPos# GT 0">
        <cfset curPos = FindNoCase(curChar,variables.tmpPassword,curPos+1)>   
        <cfset curCharCount = curCharCount + 1>
    </cfloop>
   
    <cfif curCharCount GTE 3>
        <cfset eValidate.addValidationError("password","edu.psu.fps.cfc.fpsGTW.validateForPassword.4","The password you entered cannot contain three or more occurrences of the same character (#curChar#).")>
        <cfbreak />
    </cfif>
</cfloop>






Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 8, 2010 at 10:53 AM

    To find the same character three times in a row, do this:

    (.)\1\1

    The ( ) part captures the contents of the group, the . is any single character (except newline), and the \1 refers to capture group 1.

    So it captures any single character to group one, then match that character twice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dan G. Switzer, IINovember 8, 2010 at 11:27 AM

    Wouldn't .{3,} be better? That would catch the same character repeated 3 or more times in a row.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 8, 2010 at 11:47 AM

    Nope, that says any character at least three times - it doesn't require the same character.

    (i.e the "{3,}" is applied before the "." is assigned, so it's equivalent to "...+" instead.)

    ReplyDelete

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