Regular expression to match non-ASCII characters?

Question

What is the easiest way to match non-ASCII characters in a regex? I would like to match all words individually in an input string, but the language may not be English, so I will need to match things like ü, ö, ß, and ñ. Also, this is in Javascript/jQuery, so any solution will need to apply to that.

Hamster

Do you want to match all letters or all characters? For instance do you want to include punctuation, digits, whitespace, and arbitrary signs and symbols? Saying you want to match all words makes it sound like you only want non-English letters and not all non-English characters as your question title states. – Weird

Answer 1

This should do it:

[^\x00-\x7F]+

It matches any character which is not contained in the ASCII character set (0-127, i.e. 0x0 to 0x7F).

You can do the same thing with Unicode:

[^\u0000-\u007F]+

For unicode you can look at this 2 resources:

• Code charts list of Unicode ranges
• This tool to create a regex filtered by Unicode block.

Lorenza

What is with characters outside that range? There are more than 0x80 letters. – Ani

The circumflex negates the characterclass. – Stamey

Then it's still wrong in that it matches any "non-english" letters (and maybe other characters, but I don't know the full Unicode tables), but the question author needs to match all letters, even though the question starts with only the non-english characters. You know, because then it's complete. – Ani

This doesn't answer this question about matching words with non-english characters... – Zarathustra

There is no such thing as “a character whose ASCII code is greater than 128”!!! – Quiberon

This was very helpful. I also had to add some special characters that were allowable in my case. My regex ended up like this, if it helps anyone: [^\\x00-\\x80®¢™’‘¾⅛–£€“”°•…³±—α]+ – Total

It actually works pretty well in a real life scenario, but if you want to be more precise, this may help: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… – Leban

I ended up defining [\u00BF-\u1FFF\u2C00-\uD7FF\w] as a letter. – Leban

@MarkusvonBroady thanks - that is working for all of my requirements tests (mostly European characters) - is there a way you can tell me exactly which characters are included in those ranges? – Pontiac

@Pontiac First a small fix: [\u00C0-\u1FFF\u2C00-\uD7FF\w] (without inverted question mark ¿), as for ranges, refer to BMP. 00C0 is À in Latin-1 Supplement, 1FFF is last character of Greek Extended, 2C00 is first letter in Glagolitic, and D7FF is last character in Hangul Jamo Extended-B. So it's everything except: symbols and special chars on 2 first blocks; symbols in middle blocks; surrogates, priv area and special chars in end blocks. – Leban

Thanks, didn't knew the unicode stuff. I ended up with the following regex to support non-english names: ^[\u00C0-\u017E a-zA-Z\']+$. – Pulitzer

This answer is incorrect. ASCII doesn’t include U+0080 PADDING CHARACTER*. If it would, then ASCII would consist of 129 characters instead of 128. – Linguist

You might want to use this tool for converting into most of codes r12a.github.io/apps/conversion – Flickertail

@Markus von Broady What is [\u00C0-\u1FFF\u2C00-\uD7FF\w] used for? – Pearl

@Pearl I described it in my last comment here, but let me try to visualize: i.imgur.com/GyKV73X.png - again, refer to the BMP. I marked green everything this formula includes. If it includes only a part of a block named in BMP, then I mark other parts red for clarity. Also keep in mind green/red parts probably aren't to scale. – Leban

Answer 2

var words_in_text = function (text) {
    var regex = /([\u0041-\u005A\u0061-\u007A\u00AA\u00B5\u00BA\u00C0-\u00D6\u00D8-\u00F6\u00F8-\u02C1\u02C6-\u02D1\u02E0-\u02E4\u02EC\u02EE\u0370-\u0374\u0376\u0377\u037A-\u037D\u0386\u0388-\u038A\u038C\u038E-\u03A1\u03A3-\u03F5\u03F7-\u0481\u048A-\u0527\u0531-\u0556\u0559\u0561-\u0587\u05D0-\u05EA\u05F0-\u05F2\u0620-\u064A\u066E\u066F\u0671-\u06D3\u06D5\u06E5\u06E6\u06EE\u06EF\u06FA-\u06FC\u06FF\u0710\u0712-\u072F\u074D-\u07A5\u07B1\u07CA-\u07EA\u07F4\u07F5\u07FA\u0800-\u0815\u081A\u0824\u0828\u0840-\u0858\u08A0\u08A2-\u08AC\u0904-\u0939\u093D\u0950\u0958-\u0961\u0971-\u0977\u0979-\u097F\u0985-\u098C\u098F\u0990\u0993-\u09A8\u09AA-\u09B0\u09B2\u09B6-\u09B9\u09BD\u09CE\u09DC\u09DD\u09DF-\u09E1\u09F0\u09F1\u0A05-\u0A0A\u0A0F\u0A10\u0A13-\u0A28\u0A2A-\u0A30\u0A32\u0A33\u0A35\u0A36\u0A38\u0A39\u0A59-\u0A5C\u0A5E\u0A72-\u0A74\u0A85-\u0A8D\u0A8F-\u0A91\u0A93-\u0AA8\u0AAA-\u0AB0\u0AB2\u0AB3\u0AB5-\u0AB9\u0ABD\u0AD0\u0AE0\u0AE1\u0B05-\u0B0C\u0B0F\u0B10\u0B13-\u0B28\u0B2A-\u0B30\u0B32\u0B33\u0B35-\u0B39\u0B3D\u0B5C\u0B5D\u0B5F-\u0B61\u0B71\u0B83\u0B85-\u0B8A\u0B8E-\u0B90\u0B92-\u0B95\u0B99\u0B9A\u0B9C\u0B9E\u0B9F\u0BA3\u0BA4\u0BA8-\u0BAA\u0BAE-\u0BB9\u0BD0\u0C05-\u0C0C\u0C0E-\u0C10\u0C12-\u0C28\u0C2A-\u0C33\u0C35-\u0C39\u0C3D\u0C58\u0C59\u0C60\u0C61\u0C85-\u0C8C\u0C8E-\u0C90\u0C92-\u0CA8\u0CAA-\u0CB3\u0CB5-\u0CB9\u0CBD\u0CDE\u0CE0\u0CE1\u0CF1\u0CF2\u0D05-\u0D0C\u0D0E-\u0D10\u0D12-\u0D3A\u0D3D\u0D4E\u0D60\u0D61\u0D7A-\u0D7F\u0D85-\u0D96\u0D9A-\u0DB1\u0DB3-\u0DBB\u0DBD\u0DC0-\u0DC6\u0E01-\u0E30\u0E32\u0E33\u0E40-\u0E46\u0E81\u0E82\u0E84\u0E87\u0E88\u0E8A\u0E8D\u0E94-\u0E97\u0E99-\u0E9F\u0EA1-\u0EA3\u0EA5\u0EA7\u0EAA\u0EAB\u0EAD-\u0EB0\u0EB2\u0EB3\u0EBD\u0EC0-\u0EC4\u0EC6\u0EDC-\u0EDF\u0F00\u0F40-\u0F47\u0F49-\u0F6C\u0F88-\u0F8C\u1000-\u102A\u103F\u1050-\u1055\u105A-\u105D\u1061\u1065\u1066\u106E-\u1070\u1075-\u1081\u108E\u10A0-\u10C5\u10C7\u10CD\u10D0-\u10FA\u10FC-\u1248\u124A-\u124D\u1250-\u1256\u1258\u125A-\u125D\u1260-\u1288\u128A-\u128D\u1290-\u12B0\u12B2-\u12B5\u12B8-\u12BE\u12C0\u12C2-\u12C5\u12C8-\u12D6\u12D8-\u1310\u1312-\u1315\u1318-\u135A\u1380-\u138F\u13A0-\u13F4\u1401-\u166C\u166F-\u167F\u1681-\u169A\u16A0-\u16EA\u1700-\u170C\u170E-\u1711\u1720-\u1731\u1740-\u1751\u1760-\u176C\u176E-\u1770\u1780-\u17B3\u17D7\u17DC\u1820-\u1877\u1880-\u18A8\u18AA\u18B0-\u18F5\u1900-\u191C\u1950-\u196D\u1970-\u1974\u1980-\u19AB\u19C1-\u19C7\u1A00-\u1A16\u1A20-\u1A54\u1AA7\u1B05-\u1B33\u1B45-\u1B4B\u1B83-\u1BA0\u1BAE\u1BAF\u1BBA-\u1BE5\u1C00-\u1C23\u1C4D-\u1C4F\u1C5A-\u1C7D\u1CE9-\u1CEC\u1CEE-\u1CF1\u1CF5\u1CF6\u1D00-\u1DBF\u1E00-\u1F15\u1F18-\u1F1D\u1F20-\u1F45\u1F48-\u1F4D\u1F50-\u1F57\u1F59\u1F5B\u1F5D\u1F5F-\u1F7D\u1F80-\u1FB4\u1FB6-\u1FBC\u1FBE\u1FC2-\u1FC4\u1FC6-\u1FCC\u1FD0-\u1FD3\u1FD6-\u1FDB\u1FE0-\u1FEC\u1FF2-\u1FF4\u1FF6-\u1FFC\u2071\u207F\u2090-\u209C\u2102\u2107\u210A-\u2113\u2115\u2119-\u211D\u2124\u2126\u2128\u212A-\u212D\u212F-\u2139\u213C-\u213F\u2145-\u2149\u214E\u2183\u2184\u2C00-\u2C2E\u2C30-\u2C5E\u2C60-\u2CE4\u2CEB-\u2CEE\u2CF2\u2CF3\u2D00-\u2D25\u2D27\u2D2D\u2D30-\u2D67\u2D6F\u2D80-\u2D96\u2DA0-\u2DA6\u2DA8-\u2DAE\u2DB0-\u2DB6\u2DB8-\u2DBE\u2DC0-\u2DC6\u2DC8-\u2DCE\u2DD0-\u2DD6\u2DD8-\u2DDE\u2E2F\u3005\u3006\u3031-\u3035\u303B\u303C\u3041-\u3096\u309D-\u309F\u30A1-\u30FA\u30FC-\u30FF\u3105-\u312D\u3131-\u318E\u31A0-\u31BA\u31F0-\u31FF\u3400-\u4DB5\u4E00-\u9FCC\uA000-\uA48C\uA4D0-\uA4FD\uA500-\uA60C\uA610-\uA61F\uA62A\uA62B\uA640-\uA66E\uA67F-\uA697\uA6A0-\uA6E5\uA717-\uA71F\uA722-\uA788\uA78B-\uA78E\uA790-\uA793\uA7A0-\uA7AA\uA7F8-\uA801\uA803-\uA805\uA807-\uA80A\uA80C-\uA822\uA840-\uA873\uA882-\uA8B3\uA8F2-\uA8F7\uA8FB\uA90A-\uA925\uA930-\uA946\uA960-\uA97C\uA984-\uA9B2\uA9CF\uAA00-\uAA28\uAA40-\uAA42\uAA44-\uAA4B\uAA60-\uAA76\uAA7A\uAA80-\uAAAF\uAAB1\uAAB5\uAAB6\uAAB9-\uAABD\uAAC0\uAAC2\uAADB-\uAADD\uAAE0-\uAAEA\uAAF2-\uAAF4\uAB01-\uAB06\uAB09-\uAB0E\uAB11-\uAB16\uAB20-\uAB26\uAB28-\uAB2E\uABC0-\uABE2\uAC00-\uD7A3\uD7B0-\uD7C6\uD7CB-\uD7FB\uF900-\uFA6D\uFA70-\uFAD9\uFB00-\uFB06\uFB13-\uFB17\uFB1D\uFB1F-\uFB28\uFB2A-\uFB36\uFB38-\uFB3C\uFB3E\uFB40\uFB41\uFB43\uFB44\uFB46-\uFBB1\uFBD3-\uFD3D\uFD50-\uFD8F\uFD92-\uFDC7\uFDF0-\uFDFB\uFE70-\uFE74\uFE76-\uFEFC\uFF21-\uFF3A\uFF41-\uFF5A\uFF66-\uFFBE\uFFC2-\uFFC7\uFFCA-\uFFCF\uFFD2-\uFFD7\uFFDA-\uFFDC]+)/g;
    return text.match(regex);
};

words_in_text('Düsseldorf, Köln, Москва, 北京市, إسرائيل !@#$');

// returns array ["Düsseldorf", "Köln", "Москва", "北京市", "إسرائيل"]

This regex will match all words in the text of any language...

Schriever

Why are you so sure that it matches all words in text? Any source? – Sharolynsharon

Hi ! How do you add multilines search with unicode charracter ranges ? – Provence

Ok, for those who need to match latin european languages in multiline texts, this might work using latin charset, latien extned A and latin extended B. Note this pattren excludes some punctuations or special chars like ;!<>&#$ /^[\u0061-\u007a \u0020 \r\n \u0027-\u002F \u0030-\u003A \u003F \u0041-\u005A \u0061-\u007A \u00C0-\u00FF \u0100-\u017F \u0180-\u024F]+$/ Feel free to add any other character ranges or character classes. – Provence

@Sharolynsharon Here is some source to chek to: fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/index.htm – Shalondashalt

From there you can found fileformat.info/info/unicode/category/Lu/list.htm, fileformat.info/info/unicode/category/Ll/list.htm, fileformat.info/info/unicode/category/Lo/index.htm, … – Shalondashalt

Add \u0E01-\u0E3A\u0E40-\u0E4F\u0E5A\u05B to the end for Thai. – Roundelay

It does not match Hindi, Telugu characters – Citrate

It does match cyrillic characters like this "Радио 106.9 FM, Тольятти" – Exigible

Matches all Characters in all languages [\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF] – Masquerade

OMG....you were here..... :), seriously you saved my life, the whole day I have spent on the same and finally it worked for me. Thanks a ton. – Astral

this answer is not working. 'முருகன்' this Tamil text return error – Submediant

This regex is missing a few cases, including diacritical marks - check out the answer and comments by Loilo. – Conservationist

Answer 3

Unicode Property Escapes are among the features of ES2018.

Basic Usage

With Unicode Property Escapes, you can match a letter from any language with the following simple regular expression:

/\p{Letter}/u

Or with the shorthand, even terser:

/\p{L}/u

Matching Words

Regarding the question's concrete use case (matching words), note that you can use Unicode Property Escapes in character classes, making it easy to match letters together with other word-characters like hyphens:

/[\p{L}-]/u

Stitching it all together, you could match words of all^[1] languages with this beautifully short RegEx:

/[\p{L}-]+/ug

Example (shamelessly plugged from the answer above):

'Düsseldorf, Köln, Москва, 北京市, إسرائيل !@#$'.match(/[\p{L}-]+/ug)

// ["Düsseldorf", "Köln", "Москва", "北京市", "إسرائيل"]

^[1] Note that I'm not an expert on languages. You may still want to do your own research regarding other characters that might be parts of words besides letters and hyphens.

Browser Support

This feature is available in all major evergreen browsers.

Transpiling

If support for older browsers is needed, Unicode Property Escapes can be transpiled to ES5 with a tool called regexpu. There's an online demo available here. As you can see in the demo, you can in fact match non-latin letters today with the following (horribly long) ES5 regular expression:

/(?:[A-Za-z\xAA\xB5\xBA\xC0-\xD6\xD8-\xF6\xF8-\u02C1\u02C6-\u02D1\u02E0-\u02E4\u02EC\u02EE\u0370-\u0374\u0376\u0377\u037A-\u037D\u037F\u0386\u0388-\u038A\u038C\u038E-\u03A1\u03A3-\u03F5\u03F7-\u0481\u048A-\u052F\u0531-\u0556\u0559\u0561-\u0587\u05D0-\u05EA\u05F0-\u05F2\u0620-\u064A\u066E\u066F\u0671-\u06D3\u06D5\u06E5\u06E6\u06EE\u06EF\u06FA-\u06FC\u06FF\u0710\u0712-\u072F\u074D-\u07A5\u07B1\u07CA-\u07EA\u07F4\u07F5\u07FA\u0800-\u0815\u081A\u0824\u0828\u0840-\u0858\u0860-\u086A\u08A0-\u08B4\u08B6-\u08BD\u0904-\u0939\u093D\u0950\u0958-\u0961\u0971-\u0980\u0985-\u098C\u098F\u0990\u0993-\u09A8\u09AA-\u09B0\u09B2\u09B6-\u09B9\u09BD\u09CE\u09DC\u09DD\u09DF-\u09E1\u09F0\u09F1\u09FC\u0A05-\u0A0A\u0A0F\u0A10\u0A13-\u0A28\u0A2A-\u0A30\u0A32\u0A33\u0A35\u0A36\u0A38\u0A39\u0A59-\u0A5C\u0A5E\u0A72-\u0A74\u0A85-\u0A8D\u0A8F-\u0A91\u0A93-\u0AA8\u0AAA-\u0AB0\u0AB2\u0AB3\u0AB5-\u0AB9\u0ABD\u0AD0\u0AE0\u0AE1\u0AF9\u0B05-\u0B0C\u0B0F\u0B10\u0B13-\u0B28\u0B2A-\u0B30\u0B32\u0B33\u0B35-\u0B39\u0B3D\u0B5C\u0B5D\u0B5F-\u0B61\u0B71\u0B83\u0B85-\u0B8A\u0B8E-\u0B90\u0B92-\u0B95\u0B99\u0B9A\u0B9C\u0B9E\u0B9F\u0BA3\u0BA4\u0BA8-\u0BAA\u0BAE-\u0BB9\u0BD0\u0C05-\u0C0C\u0C0E-\u0C10\u0C12-\u0C28\u0C2A-\u0C39\u0C3D\u0C58-\u0C5A\u0C60\u0C61\u0C80\u0C85-\u0C8C\u0C8E-\u0C90\u0C92-\u0CA8\u0CAA-\u0CB3\u0CB5-\u0CB9\u0CBD\u0CDE\u0CE0\u0CE1\u0CF1\u0CF2\u0D05-\u0D0C\u0D0E-\u0D10\u0D12-\u0D3A\u0D3D\u0D4E\u0D54-\u0D56\u0D5F-\u0D61\u0D7A-\u0D7F\u0D85-\u0D96\u0D9A-\u0DB1\u0DB3-\u0DBB\u0DBD\u0DC0-\u0DC6\u0E01-\u0E30\u0E32\u0E33\u0E40-\u0E46\u0E81\u0E82\u0E84\u0E87\u0E88\u0E8A\u0E8D\u0E94-\u0E97\u0E99-\u0E9F\u0EA1-\u0EA3\u0EA5\u0EA7\u0EAA\u0EAB\u0EAD-\u0EB0\u0EB2\u0EB3\u0EBD\u0EC0-\u0EC4\u0EC6\u0EDC-\u0EDF\u0F00\u0F40-\u0F47\u0F49-\u0F6C\u0F88-\u0F8C\u1000-\u102A\u103F\u1050-\u1055\u105A-\u105D\u1061\u1065\u1066\u106E-\u1070\u1075-\u1081\u108E\u10A0-\u10C5\u10C7\u10CD\u10D0-\u10FA\u10FC-\u1248\u124A-\u124D\u1250-\u1256\u1258\u125A-\u125D\u1260-\u1288\u128A-\u128D\u1290-\u12B0\u12B2-\u12B5\u12B8-\u12BE\u12C0\u12C2-\u12C5\u12C8-\u12D6\u12D8-\u1310\u1312-\u1315\u1318-\u135A\u1380-\u138F\u13A0-\u13F5\u13F8-\u13FD\u1401-\u166C\u166F-\u167F\u1681-\u169A\u16A0-\u16EA\u16F1-\u16F8\u1700-\u170C\u170E-\u1711\u1720-\u1731\u1740-\u1751\u1760-\u176C\u176E-\u1770\u1780-\u17B3\u17D7\u17DC\u1820-\u1877\u1880-\u1884\u1887-\u18A8\u18AA\u18B0-\u18F5\u1900-\u191E\u1950-\u196D\u1970-\u1974\u1980-\u19AB\u19B0-\u19C9\u1A00-\u1A16\u1A20-\u1A54\u1AA7\u1B05-\u1B33\u1B45-\u1B4B\u1B83-\u1BA0\u1BAE\u1BAF\u1BBA-\u1BE5\u1C00-\u1C23\u1C4D-\u1C4F\u1C5A-\u1C7D\u1C80-\u1C88\u1CE9-\u1CEC\u1CEE-\u1CF1\u1CF5\u1CF6\u1D00-\u1DBF\u1E00-\u1F15\u1F18-\u1F1D\u1F20-\u1F45\u1F48-\u1F4D\u1F50-\u1F57\u1F59\u1F5B\u1F5D\u1F5F-\u1F7D\u1F80-\u1FB4\u1FB6-\u1FBC\u1FBE\u1FC2-\u1FC4\u1FC6-\u1FCC\u1FD0-\u1FD3\u1FD6-\u1FDB\u1FE0-\u1FEC\u1FF2-\u1FF4\u1FF6-\u1FFC\u2071\u207F\u2090-\u209C\u2102\u2107\u210A-\u2113\u2115\u2119-\u211D\u2124\u2126\u2128\u212A-\u212D\u212F-\u2139\u213C-\u213F\u2145-\u2149\u214E\u2183\u2184\u2C00-\u2C2E\u2C30-\u2C5E\u2C60-\u2CE4\u2CEB-\u2CEE\u2CF2\u2CF3\u2D00-\u2D25\u2D27\u2D2D\u2D30-\u2D67\u2D6F\u2D80-\u2D96\u2DA0-\u2DA6\u2DA8-\u2DAE\u2DB0-\u2DB6\u2DB8-\u2DBE\u2DC0-\u2DC6\u2DC8-\u2DCE\u2DD0-\u2DD6\u2DD8-\u2DDE\u2E2F\u3005\u3006\u3031-\u3035\u303B\u303C\u3041-\u3096\u309D-\u309F\u30A1-\u30FA\u30FC-\u30FF\u3105-\u312E\u3131-\u318E\u31A0-\u31BA\u31F0-\u31FF\u3400-\u4DB5\u4E00-\u9FEA\uA000-\uA48C\uA4D0-\uA4FD\uA500-\uA60C\uA610-\uA61F\uA62A\uA62B\uA640-\uA66E\uA67F-\uA69D\uA6A0-\uA6E5\uA717-\uA71F\uA722-\uA788\uA78B-\uA7AE\uA7B0-\uA7B7\uA7F7-\uA801\uA803-\uA805\uA807-\uA80A\uA80C-\uA822\uA840-\uA873\uA882-\uA8B3\uA8F2-\uA8F7\uA8FB\uA8FD\uA90A-\uA925\uA930-\uA946\uA960-\uA97C\uA984-\uA9B2\uA9CF\uA9E0-\uA9E4\uA9E6-\uA9EF\uA9FA-\uA9FE\uAA00-\uAA28\uAA40-\uAA42\uAA44-\uAA4B\uAA60-\uAA76\uAA7A\uAA7E-\uAAAF\uAAB1\uAAB5\uAAB6\uAAB9-\uAABD\uAAC0\uAAC2\uAADB-\uAADD\uAAE0-\uAAEA\uAAF2-\uAAF4\uAB01-\uAB06\uAB09-\uAB0E\uAB11-\uAB16\uAB20-\uAB26\uAB28-\uAB2E\uAB30-\uAB5A\uAB5C-\uAB65\uAB70-\uABE2\uAC00-\uD7A3\uD7B0-\uD7C6\uD7CB-\uD7FB\uF900-\uFA6D\uFA70-\uFAD9\uFB00-\uFB06\uFB13-\uFB17\uFB1D\uFB1F-\uFB28\uFB2A-\uFB36\uFB38-\uFB3C\uFB3E\uFB40\uFB41\uFB43\uFB44\uFB46-\uFBB1\uFBD3-\uFD3D\uFD50-\uFD8F\uFD92-\uFDC7\uFDF0-\uFDFB\uFE70-\uFE74\uFE76-\uFEFC\uFF21-\uFF3A\uFF41-\uFF5A\uFF66-\uFFBE\uFFC2-\uFFC7\uFFCA-\uFFCF\uFFD2-\uFFD7\uFFDA-\uFFDC]|\uD800[\uDC00-\uDC0B\uDC0D-\uDC26\uDC28-\uDC3A\uDC3C\uDC3D\uDC3F-\uDC4D\uDC50-\uDC5D\uDC80-\uDCFA\uDE80-\uDE9C\uDEA0-\uDED0\uDF00-\uDF1F\uDF2D-\uDF40\uDF42-\uDF49\uDF50-\uDF75\uDF80-\uDF9D\uDFA0-\uDFC3\uDFC8-\uDFCF]|\uD801[\uDC00-\uDC9D\uDCB0-\uDCD3\uDCD8-\uDCFB\uDD00-\uDD27\uDD30-\uDD63\uDE00-\uDF36\uDF40-\uDF55\uDF60-\uDF67]|\uD802[\uDC00-\uDC05\uDC08\uDC0A-\uDC35\uDC37\uDC38\uDC3C\uDC3F-\uDC55\uDC60-\uDC76\uDC80-\uDC9E\uDCE0-\uDCF2\uDCF4\uDCF5\uDD00-\uDD15\uDD20-\uDD39\uDD80-\uDDB7\uDDBE\uDDBF\uDE00\uDE10-\uDE13\uDE15-\uDE17\uDE19-\uDE33\uDE60-\uDE7C\uDE80-\uDE9C\uDEC0-\uDEC7\uDEC9-\uDEE4\uDF00-\uDF35\uDF40-\uDF55\uDF60-\uDF72\uDF80-\uDF91]|\uD803[\uDC00-\uDC48\uDC80-\uDCB2\uDCC0-\uDCF2]|\uD804[\uDC03-\uDC37\uDC83-\uDCAF\uDCD0-\uDCE8\uDD03-\uDD26\uDD50-\uDD72\uDD76\uDD83-\uDDB2\uDDC1-\uDDC4\uDDDA\uDDDC\uDE00-\uDE11\uDE13-\uDE2B\uDE80-\uDE86\uDE88\uDE8A-\uDE8D\uDE8F-\uDE9D\uDE9F-\uDEA8\uDEB0-\uDEDE\uDF05-\uDF0C\uDF0F\uDF10\uDF13-\uDF28\uDF2A-\uDF30\uDF32\uDF33\uDF35-\uDF39\uDF3D\uDF50\uDF5D-\uDF61]|\uD805[\uDC00-\uDC34\uDC47-\uDC4A\uDC80-\uDCAF\uDCC4\uDCC5\uDCC7\uDD80-\uDDAE\uDDD8-\uDDDB\uDE00-\uDE2F\uDE44\uDE80-\uDEAA\uDF00-\uDF19]|\uD806[\uDCA0-\uDCDF\uDCFF\uDE00\uDE0B-\uDE32\uDE3A\uDE50\uDE5C-\uDE83\uDE86-\uDE89\uDEC0-\uDEF8]|\uD807[\uDC00-\uDC08\uDC0A-\uDC2E\uDC40\uDC72-\uDC8F\uDD00-\uDD06\uDD08\uDD09\uDD0B-\uDD30\uDD46]|\uD808[\uDC00-\uDF99]|\uD809[\uDC80-\uDD43]|[\uD80C\uD81C-\uD820\uD840-\uD868\uD86A-\uD86C\uD86F-\uD872\uD874-\uD879][\uDC00-\uDFFF]|\uD80D[\uDC00-\uDC2E]|\uD811[\uDC00-\uDE46]|\uD81A[\uDC00-\uDE38\uDE40-\uDE5E\uDED0-\uDEED\uDF00-\uDF2F\uDF40-\uDF43\uDF63-\uDF77\uDF7D-\uDF8F]|\uD81B[\uDF00-\uDF44\uDF50\uDF93-\uDF9F\uDFE0\uDFE1]|\uD821[\uDC00-\uDFEC]|\uD822[\uDC00-\uDEF2]|\uD82C[\uDC00-\uDD1E\uDD70-\uDEFB]|\uD82F[\uDC00-\uDC6A\uDC70-\uDC7C\uDC80-\uDC88\uDC90-\uDC99]|\uD835[\uDC00-\uDC54\uDC56-\uDC9C\uDC9E\uDC9F\uDCA2\uDCA5\uDCA6\uDCA9-\uDCAC\uDCAE-\uDCB9\uDCBB\uDCBD-\uDCC3\uDCC5-\uDD05\uDD07-\uDD0A\uDD0D-\uDD14\uDD16-\uDD1C\uDD1E-\uDD39\uDD3B-\uDD3E\uDD40-\uDD44\uDD46\uDD4A-\uDD50\uDD52-\uDEA5\uDEA8-\uDEC0\uDEC2-\uDEDA\uDEDC-\uDEFA\uDEFC-\uDF14\uDF16-\uDF34\uDF36-\uDF4E\uDF50-\uDF6E\uDF70-\uDF88\uDF8A-\uDFA8\uDFAA-\uDFC2\uDFC4-\uDFCB]|\uD83A[\uDC00-\uDCC4\uDD00-\uDD43]|\uD83B[\uDE00-\uDE03\uDE05-\uDE1F\uDE21\uDE22\uDE24\uDE27\uDE29-\uDE32\uDE34-\uDE37\uDE39\uDE3B\uDE42\uDE47\uDE49\uDE4B\uDE4D-\uDE4F\uDE51\uDE52\uDE54\uDE57\uDE59\uDE5B\uDE5D\uDE5F\uDE61\uDE62\uDE64\uDE67-\uDE6A\uDE6C-\uDE72\uDE74-\uDE77\uDE79-\uDE7C\uDE7E\uDE80-\uDE89\uDE8B-\uDE9B\uDEA1-\uDEA3\uDEA5-\uDEA9\uDEAB-\uDEBB]|\uD869[\uDC00-\uDED6\uDF00-\uDFFF]|\uD86D[\uDC00-\uDF34\uDF40-\uDFFF]|\uD86E[\uDC00-\uDC1D\uDC20-\uDFFF]|\uD873[\uDC00-\uDEA1\uDEB0-\uDFFF]|\uD87A[\uDC00-\uDFE0]|\uD87E[\uDC00-\uDE1D])/

If you're using Babel, there's also a regexpu-powered plugin for that (Babel v6 plugin, Babel v7 plugin).

Splenetic

This is the actual solution in my case. Specifically: [\p{L}\s\d] to accept any name in any language with spaces and numbers. Ref link – Fabricate

Names could still include hyphens (quite common here in Germany for example). To be honest, it's probably best to not make any assumptions at all about what characters a valid name includes. – Splenetic

Top answer for JS. Still not supported in Edge/Firefox today, so Transpiling stil is relevant. – Dehumidifier

Hooray! It's about time this was supported. – Shears

I think this is the most useful and true answer. At the end, probably what we want is to match a word in any language using regex – Turkic

This is the firefox feature request: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1361876 – Luellaluelle

Thanks for transpiled version ! – Jimjimdandy

@Splenetic could you please what exactly /u means ? – Vaporific

@MatzHeri The u flag has been introduced in ES2015 and enables various features related to Unicode (e.g. the property escapes mentioned in my answer, even though those have only been introduced a couple years later). Since the Unicode-related features slightly change the semantics of some regex patterns, this has to be explicitly enabled — by adding that u flag. – Splenetic

/[\p{L}-]+/ug does not match e.g. städer. For some reason it is split in two. Why does this happen? – Antithesis

@Antithesis This seems to be a problem with regex101. The browsers I've tested this with do match the städer string perfectly well. (Also note how regex101 splits the string into "sta" and "der", which is not correct either.) – Splenetic

Actually, that ä is a decomposed unicode character. The diacritic will be matched by \p{M}. Your regex could be improved to handle this. E.g. /[\p{Alpha}\p{M}-]+/ug – Antithesis

I recommend adding \p{M} and ' to your regex, which makes it pass my tests. I believe Go and the Python regex module from pypi both support this syntax. – Conservationist

I decided on ['0-9\p{L}\p{M}]. You can also add a hypen depending on your use case. – Conservationist

Answer 4

The situation with regexes, Unicode, and Javascript sucks. It's ridiculous that programmers should have to rely on external libraries to recognize that "Αλφα" is a word, or even that "é" is a letter.

But so it goes.

This guy has written a good library for handling Unicode in Javascript Regexes:

http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/javascript-regex-and-unicode

The Unicode stuff is a plugin to this regex library:

http://xregexp.com/

Here's a post about the Unicode extension:

http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/xregexp-unicode-plugin

And the extension page itself:

http://xregexp.com/plugins/

Great work but it still bums me out that Javascript is so backwards in this regard.

(He wrote a book for O'Reilly about the topic so it's quite possible that he knows what he's talking about.)

The way he implemented it is by adding tables of characters with certain properties. Then, when you contruct a regex with his library, \p{charclass} gets replaced with [allthecharactersintheclass].

Sheryl

Twitter also has a nice text parsing library that covers lots of languages, although (obviously) very hashtag-centric: github.com/twitter/twitter-text-js – Bedstead

This answer is now outdated; see Loilo's answer for how to do it in native JavaScript. – Penmanship

Answer 5

The answer given by Jeremy Ruten is great, but I think it's not exactly what Paul Wicks was searching for. If I understand correctly Paul asked about expression to match non-english words like können or móc. Jeremy's regex matches only non-english letters, so there's need for small improvement:

([^\x00-\x7F]|\w)+

or

([^\u0000-\u007F]|\w)+

This [^\x00-\x7F] and this [^\u0000-\u007F] parts allow regullar expression to match non-english letters.

This (|) is logical or and \w is english letter, so ([^\u0000-\u007F]|\w) will match single english or non-english letter.

+ at the end of the expression means it could be repeated, so the whole expression allows all english or non-english letters to match.

Here you can test the first expression with various strings and here is the second.

Kenna

The characters from 0 to 31 are control characters and should not be part of the regexp imho. – Inconstant

Answer 6

You do the same way as any other character matching, but you use \uXXXX where XXXX is the unicode number of the character.

Look at: http://unicode.org/charts/charindex.html

http://unicode.org/charts/

http://www.decodeunicode.org/

Burgoyne

except for the fact that looking up each and every thing that can be called a character while not adding any special symbols, such as spaces, punctuation etc is quite a task. – Gizmo

Answer 7

All Unicode-enabled Regex flavours should have a special character class like \w that match any Unicode letter. Take a look at your specific flavour here.

Ani

This is correct for most flavors of regex, but not for JavaScript, at least according to regular-expressions.info/javascript.html – Hamster

Bad luck then, I guess. At least you can use then use the Unicode charts posted by olle to find your characters ;) – Ani

I think \w is dependents on the cultural settings on the client. – Stamey

I don't know, but in .NET, you can always specify the culture you want. Apart from that, what is a letter and what not is defined in the Unicode standard and is not dependent on culture. – Ani

Answer 8

I had a problem with \p working as expected, so I just used a different strategy like:

([^\t]+)\t

Find anything that is not a tab character until the next tab character... obviously this depends on your search source, but you get the idea. Now I don't have to figure out what unicode characters work and don't work etc.

Engler

Answer 9

You can always exclude the printable characters tab and space to tilde. Accents should show up. (powershell). Note there's some weird unicode exceptions where a foreign capital letter has an english small letter İ K, so a case insensitive match will give unexpected results.

'ü' | select-string '[^\t -~]' -CaseSensitive

ü

Peru