HTML attribute: pattern

When including a pattern, provide a description of the pattern in visible text near the control. Additionally, include a title attribute which gives a description of the pattern. User agents may use the title contents during constraint validation to tell the user that the pattern is not matched. Some browsers show a tooltip with title contents, improving usability for sighted users. Additionally, assistive technology may read the title aloud when the control gains focus, but this should not be relied upon for accessibility.

If the input's value is not the empty string and the value does not match the entire regular expression, there is a from a patternMismatch. The pattern's regular expression, when matched against the value, must have its start anchored to the start of the string and its end anchored to the end of the string, which is slightly different from JavaScript regular expressions: in the case of pattern attribute, we are matching against the entire value, not just any subset, as if a ^(?: were implied at the start of the pattern and )$ at the end.

Given the following:

<p>
  <label
    >Enter your phone number in the format (123)456-7890 (<input
      name="tel1"
      type="tel"
      pattern="[0-9]{3}"
      placeholder="###"
      aria-label="3-digit area code"
      size="2" />)-
    <input
      name="tel2"
      type="tel"
      pattern="[0-9]{3}"
      placeholder="###"
      aria-label="3-digit prefix"
      size="2" />
    -
    <input
      name="tel3"
      type="tel"
      pattern="[0-9]{4}"
      placeholder="####"
      aria-label="4-digit number"
      size="3" />
  </label>
</p>

Here we have 3 sections for a north American phone number with an implicit label encompassing all three components of the phone number, expecting 3-digits, 3-digits and 4-digits respectively, as defined by the pattern attribute set on each.

If the values are too long or too short, or contain characters that aren't digits, the patternMismatch will be true. When true, the element matches the :invalid CSS pseudo-classes.

input:invalid {
  border: red solid 3px;
}

Had we used minlength and maxlength attributes instead, we may have seen validityState.tooLong or validityState.tooShort being true.

You can use the pattern attribute to specify a regular expression that the inputted value must match in order to be considered valid (see Validating against a regular expression for a simple crash course on using regular expressions to validate inputs).

The example below restricts the value to 4-8 characters and requires that it contain only lower-case letters.

<form>
  <div>
    <label for="uname">Choose a username: </label>
    <input
      type="text"
      id="uname"
      name="name"
      required
      size="45"
      pattern="[a-z]{4,8}"
      title="4 to 8 lowercase letters" />
    <span class="validity"></span>
    <p>Usernames must be lowercase and 4-8 characters in length.</p>
  </div>
  <div>
    <button>Submit</button>
  </div>
</form>

div {
  margin-bottom: 10px;
  position: relative;
}

p {
  font-size: 80%;
  color: #999;
}

input + span {
  padding-right: 30px;
}

input:invalid + span:after {
  position: absolute;
  content: "✖";
  padding-left: 5px;
}

input:valid + span:after {
  position: absolute;
  content: "✓";
  padding-left: 5px;
}

This renders like so:

When a control has a pattern attribute, the title attribute, if used, must describe the pattern. Relying on the title attribute for the visual display of text content is generally discouraged as many user agents do not expose the attribute in an accessible manner. Some browsers show a tooltip when an element with a title is hovered, but that leaves out keyboard-only and touch-only users. This is one of the several reasons you must include information informing users how to fill out the the control to match the requirements.

While titles are used by some browsers to populate error messaging, because browsers sometimes also show the title as text on hover, it therefore shows in non-error situations, so be careful not to word titles as if an error has occurred.

• Constraint validation
• Forms: Data form validation
• Regular Expressions