I'd think you need to indicate multiple alphabetic matches. Your first regex actually matches only b followed by end of string and the second is really only matching start of string followed by a. The third is looking for a single character string.
Try this: select 'ab' ~ '^[a-z]+$' or this: select 'ab' ~ '^[a-z]*$' or if looking only for 2 character strings: select 'ab' ~ '^[a-z][a-z]$' On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 3:41 PM, andrew1 <andr...@mytrashmail.com> wrote: > hi all, > > these return t: > select 'ab' ~ '[a-z]$' > select 'ab' ~ '^[a-z]' > > select 'ab' ~ '^[a-z]$' returns f > > Can't I use ^ and $ at the same time to match, in this case? > thanks. > > -- > Sent via pgsql-sql mailing list (pgsql-sql@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql >