Regular Expressions 101

Community Patterns

Community Library Entry

1

Regular Expression
ECMAScript (JavaScript)

/
^(?!-00:00)(?=^(?:Z|[\+\-](?:0[0-9]|1[012]):00|\+0[34569]:30|\+10:30|-03:30|-09:30|\+13:00|\+14:00|\+05:45|\+08:45|\+12:45))^((Z)|([\+\-])(\d\d):(\d\d))$
/
gm

Description

Time Zone UTC Offsets in actual use for ISO 8601 / RFC 3339 Date Times (Museum of Bad Data)

https://regex101.com/library/F21Glr

Matches only (and every) UTC offset that is in actual use and valid under ISO 8601 and RFC 3339 (Y'know, the '2008-08-08T08:08:08+05:00' looking one, this is the plus/minus sign part and what follows, or the 'Z' for UTC).

This regex will work in all versions of Javascript past and present. The Expanded version with the comments will not.

Edge cases:

  • Rejects -00:00, which is valid RFC 3339 but invalid ISO 8601.
  • Accepts 13:00, 14:00, -03:30, and other yes-those-are-valid offsets

References:

Test cases:


// Time Zone UTC Offsets in actual use for ISO 8601 / RFC 3339 (Museum of Bad Data)
// Accept: UTC indicator
Z
// Accept: Valid +xx:00
+00:00
+01:00
+02:00
+03:00
+04:00
+05:00
+06:00
+07:00
+08:00
+09:00
+10:00
+11:00
+12:00
+13:00
+14:00
// Accept: Valid -xx:00
-01:00
-02:00
-03:00
-04:00
-05:00
-06:00
-07:00
-08:00
-09:00
-10:00
-11:00
-12:00

// Accept: Valid +xx:30
+03:30
+04:30
+05:30
+06:30
+09:30
+10:30

// Accept: Valid +xx:45
+05:45
+08:45
+12:45

// Accept: Valid -xx:30
-03:30
-09:30

// Accept: Valid: 30 offsets

+03:30
+04:30
+05:30
+06:30
+09:30
+10:30
-03:30
-09:30

// Accept: Valid :45 offsets
+05:45
+08:45
+12:45

// Reject: valid RFC 3339, invalid ISO 8601

-00:00

// Reject: no such UTC offset in use
-13:00
-14:00
+00:01
+00:03
+00:99
+20:00
+0:00
// Reject: no such UTC offset in use

+01:30
+07:30
+08:30
+02:30
+11:30
+12:30
+13:30
+14:30
-01:30
-02:30
-04:30
-05:30
-06:30
-07:30
-08:30
-10:30
-11:30
-12:30
-13:30
-14:30

// Reject: Unused :45 offsets
+01:45
+02:45
+03:45
+04:45
+06:45
+07:45
+09:45
+10:45
+11:45
+13:45
+14:45
-01:45
-02:45
-03:45
-04:45
-05:45
-06:45
-07:45
-08:45
-09:45
-10:45
-11:45
-12:45
-13:45
-14:45

+01:15
+02:15
+03:15
+04:15
+05:15
+06:15
+07:15
+08:15
+09:15
+10:15
+11:15
+12:15
+13:15
+14:15
-01:15
-02:15
-03:15
-04:15
-05:15
-06:15
-07:15
-08:15
-09:15
-10:15
-11:15
-12:15
-13:15
-14:15

// Reject: Z stands alone
Z00:00
Z00
Z0
// Reject: hyphen required
0100
+0100
-0100
// Reject: colon required
+0100
// Reject: No extra characters
2001-02-03T04:05:06.007+0800
+08:00 
 +08:00

Expanded Pattern:

^(?!-00:00)(?=^(?:Z|[\+\-](?:0[0-9]|1[012]):00|\+0[34569]:30|\+10:30|-03:30|-09:30|\+13:00|\+14:00|\+05:45|\+08:45|\+12:45))^((Z)|([\+\-])(\d\d):(\d\d))$
^ # use zero-width assertions to capture all the special cases:
(?!-00:00)                                    # not -00:00
(?=^(?:
   Z                                          # Z alone works,
   |[\+\-](?:0[0-9]|1[012]):00                # and all other +/- xx:00s,
   |\+0[34569]:30|\+10:30|-03:30|-09:30       # the +/- xx:30s.
   |\+13:00|\+14:00|\+05:45|\+08:45|\+12:45   # and these special cases
)) # Now that we've forced only positive matches, let's capture the pieces:
^(               # G1: the whole offset
  (Z) |             # G2: UTC indicator or nil
  ([\+\-])          # G3: +/- direction
  (\d\d)            # G4: "hours" part of offset
  :
  (\d\d)            # G5: "minutes" part of offset
)$
Submitted by Philip Flip Kromer - a year ago