Can't escape the backslash with regex?

Question

I\'m using the following regex

^[a-zA-Z0-9\\\',!;\\?\\$\\^:\\\\\\/`\\|~&\\\" @#%\\*\\{}\\(\\)_\\+\\.\\s=-]{1,1000}$

I know it\'s ugly,

Answer 1

From http://www.regular-expressions.info/charclass.html :

Note that the only special characters or metacharacters inside a character class are the closing bracket (]), the backslash (\\), the caret (^) and the hyphen (-). The usual metacharacters are normal characters inside a character class, and do not need to be escaped by a backslash. To search for a star or plus, use [+*]. Your regex will work fine if you escape the regular metacharacters inside a character class, but doing so significantly reduces readability.

To include a backslash as a character without any special meaning inside a character class, you have to escape it with another backslash. [\\x] matches a backslash or an x. The closing bracket (]), the caret (^) and the hyphen (-) can be included by escaping them with a backslash, or by placing them in a position where they do not take on their special meaning. I recommend the latter method, since it improves readability. To include a caret, place it anywhere except right after the opening bracket. [x^] matches an x or a caret. You can put the closing bracket right after the opening bracket, or the negating caret. []x] matches a closing bracket or an x. [^]x] matches any character that is not a closing bracket or an x. The hyphen can be included right after the opening bracket, or right before the closing bracket, or right after the negating caret. Both [-x] and [x-] match an x or a hyphen.

What language are you writing the regex in?