So I have a text field on my web form, that users will use to enter a file path. I want to check if what is entered ends with .pdf

I have been looking around, and it looks like RegEx is what I need to use to get multiple browser support, but I couldn't find a good example.

HTML field

<input type="text" name="filelocation" id="filelocation" placeholder="Must include .pdf file extension">

So I have a text field on my web form, that users will use to enter a file path. I want to check if what is entered ends with .pdf

I have been looking around, and it looks like RegEx is what I need to use to get multiple browser support, but I couldn't find a good example.

HTML field

<input type="text" name="filelocation" id="filelocation" placeholder="Must include .pdf file extension">

• javascript
• regex
• html-input

Share Improve this question Follow edited Dec 29, 2015 at 18:25 Patton Pierce 33511 gold badge22 silver badges1414 bronze badges asked Dec 29, 2015 at 17:45 Jordan DavisJordan Davis 87544 gold badges1616 silver badges2222 bronze badges 4

• 1 @AvinashRaj will match '.pdf' anywhere in the test string. – Jared Smith Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 17:51
• 1 @AvinashRaj More like \.pdf$ – SeinopSys Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 17:51
• @DJDavid98 more like /.*\.pdf/ – Jared Smith Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 17:53
• @JaredSmith "will match '.pdf' anywhere in the test string." ;) – SeinopSys Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 17:54

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6 Answers 6

Sorted by: Reset to default 5

You can use the pattern attribute to do so:

<form action="#">
  <input type="text" pattern=".+\.pdf$" placeholder="Must include .pdf file extension">
  <input type="submit">
</form>

It will also assure that there is some text before the .pdf at the end

Regex is probably the wrong tool for this. Try

var arr = path.split('.');
if (arr[arr.length - 1] === 'pdf') {
  //do your thing
}

This should work fine in any browser.

If you prefer the regex solution (this isn't plicated enough for any performance parison to matter, so its purely up to your taste) see CodeiSir's answer. It uses the HTML pattern attribute.

The expression you need is /\.pdf$/.

Example:

document.querySelector('#filelocation').addEventListener('blur', check);

function check(e) {
 alert(/\.pdf$/.test(e.target.value));
}

<input type="text" name="filelocation" id="filelocation" placeholder="Must include .pdf file extension">

I agree that RegEx is probably not the best solution for this. Due to that, I remend Jared Smith's answer. However, if you really want to use RegEx for this, give the following pattern a try:

var PdfPattern = /*\.pdf$/i;

This pattern will match any string that ends in ".pdf" with case insensitivity (e.g., "something.pdf" is equivalent to "something.PDF", "something.PdF", etcetera).

If you are asking about this with the intent to allow file uploads, then, for security reasons, you should also do server-side checks to make sure the uploaded file is actually a PDF. Doing checks client-side in Javascript is not sufficient for security.

You can use match method to check if the name string has .pdf at the end.

---

var fileName1 = "something.pdf";
var fileName2 = "other.pdf.not.valid";
var fileName3 = "somethingpdf";

var outputDiv = 'output';

validatePdfFileName(fileName1, outputDiv);
validatePdfFileName(fileName2, outputDiv);
validatePdfFileName(fileName3, outputDiv);

function validatePdfFileName(fileName, outputDivId) {
  var outputDiv = document.getElementById(outputDivId);


  if (fileName.match(/\.pdf$/)) {
    outputDiv.innerHTML = outputDiv.innerHTML + "</br> valid pdf file name: " + fileName + " </br>";
  } else {
    outputDiv.innerHTML = outputDiv.innerHTML + "</br> invalid pdf file name: " + fileName + " </br";
  }
}

<div id="output">Output</br></div>

The regex sentence that work for me is the following

^[a-zA-Z�-ú0-9\s]{3,50}[.]{1}(([pP][dD][fF]))$

You can test it in the web site

https://regexr./