need regular expression for stock list

[billsahiker]

I am using the following to validate user input of a comma delimited
list of stock symbols, separated by a comma and one or two spaces:

^(?:\u0020{1,2})?\w{1,5}(?:\u0020{1,2})?(?:,(?:\u0020{1,2})?\w{1,5}(?:
\u0020{1,2})?)*$

It works, but I need to allow stock indices, which begin with ^ (ascii
94). How can I do that?

sample input:

MSFT, INTC,^DJI,LU, SIRI

bill

 

[billsahiker]

I figured it out:

^(?:\u0020{1,2})?\^?\w{1,5}(?:\u0020{1,2})?(?:,(?:\u0020{1,2})?\^?
\w{1,5}(?:\u0020{1,2})?)*$

but could someone explain what the colon represents? I found a regex
reference but the colon is not listed.

 

[ron.h.hall]

I figured it out:

^(?:\u0020{1,2})?\^?\w{1,5}(?:\u0020{1,2})?(?:,(?:\u0020{1,2})?\^?
\w{1,5}(?:\u0020{1,2})?)*$

but could someone explain what the colon represents? I found a regex
reference but the colon is not listed.

It seems that is should be possible to simplify the expression
substantially by removing the requirement for lookahead (?, along
the lines of:

/^\^?\w{1,5}(,\s{0,2}\^?\w{1,5})*$/

Note that the expression above allows for the case where there are no
spaces(tabs, etc.) following the ",", as per the example data that was
provided.