邮政编码可能会发生变化，验证邮政编码的唯一真正方法是拥有完整的邮政编码列表，并查看它是否存在。

但是正则表达式很有用，因为它们:

是否易于使用和实现 是短暂的 都跑得很快 相当容易维护(与完整的邮政编码列表相比) 仍然捕获大多数输入错误

但是正则表达式往往很难维护，特别是对于那些一开始就没有想到它的人来说。所以它一定是:

尽量简单易懂 相对未来的证明

这意味着这个答案中的大多数正则表达式都不够好。例如，我可以看到[a - pr - uwyz][a - hk - y][0-9][ABEHMNPRV-Y]将匹配形式为AA1A的邮政编码区域-但如果添加了新的邮政编码区域，这将是一个令人头疼的问题，因为很难理解它匹配哪些邮政编码区域。

我还想让我的正则表达式匹配邮政编码的前半部分和后半部分。

所以我想到了这个:

(GIR(?=\s*0AA)|(?:[BEGLMNSW]|[A-Z]{2})[0-9](?:[0-9]|(?<=N1|E1|SE1|SW1|W1|NW1|EC[0-9]|WC[0-9])[A-HJ-NP-Z])?)\s*([0-9][ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2})

在PCRE格式中，可以这样写:

/^
  ( GIR(?=\s*0AA) # Match the special postcode "GIR 0AA"
    |
    (?:
      [BEGLMNSW] | # There are 8 single-letter postcode areas
      [A-Z]{2}     # All other postcode areas have two letters
      )
    [0-9] # There is always at least one number after the postcode area
    (?:
      [0-9] # And an optional extra number
      |
      # Only certain postcode areas can have an extra letter after the number
      (?<=N1|E1|SE1|SW1|W1|NW1|EC[0-9]|WC[0-9])
      [A-HJ-NP-Z] # Possible letters here may change, but [IO] will never be used
      )?
    )
  \s*
  ([0-9][ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}) # The last two letters cannot be [CIKMOV]
$/x

对我来说，这是尽可能多地验证之间的正确平衡，与此同时，未来的验证和易于维护。

我从一个XML文档中窃取了这个，它似乎涵盖了没有硬编码的GIRO的所有情况:

%r{[A-Z]{1,2}[0-9R][0-9A-Z]? [0-9][A-Z]{2}}i

(Ruby语法忽略大小写)

^([A-PR-UWYZ0-9][A-HK-Y0-9][AEHMNPRTVXY0-9]?[ABEHMNPRVWXY0-9]? {1,2}[0-9][ABD-HJLN-UW-Z]{2}|GIR 0AA)$

Regular expression to match valid UK postcodes. In the UK postal system not all letters are used in all positions (the same with vehicle registration plates) and there are various rules to govern this. This regex takes into account those rules. Details of the rules: First half of postcode Valid formats [A-Z][A-Z][0-9][A-Z] [A-Z][A-Z][0-9][0-9] [A-Z][0-9][0-9] [A-Z][A-Z][0-9] [A-Z][A-Z][A-Z] [A-Z][0-9][A-Z] [A-Z][0-9] Exceptions Position - First. Contraint - QVX not used Position - Second. Contraint - IJZ not used except in GIR 0AA Position - Third. Constraint - AEHMNPRTVXY only used Position - Forth. Contraint - ABEHMNPRVWXY Second half of postcode Valid formats [0-9][A-Z][A-Z] Exceptions Position - Second and Third. Contraint - CIKMOV not used

http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=260

我发现在几乎所有的变化和regex从批量转移pdf和什么是在维基百科网站上是这样的，特别是维基百科的regex是，需要有一个^后的第一个|(竖条)。我通过测试AA9A 9AA发现了这一点，因为否则A9A 9AA的格式检查将验证它。例如，检查应该无效的EC1D 1BB返回有效，因为C1D 1BB是有效的格式。

以下是我想出的一个好的正则表达式:

^([G][I][R] 0[A]{2})|^((([A-Z-[QVX]][0-9]{1,2})|([A-Z-[QVX]][A-HK-Y][0-9]{1,2})|([A-Z-[QVX]][0-9][ABCDEFGHJKPSTUW])|([A-Z-[QVX]][A-HK-Y][0-9][ABEHMNPRVWXY])) [0-9][A-Z-[CIKMOV]]{2})$

虽然这里有很多答案，但我对其中任何一个都不满意。他们中的大多数只是简单地坏了，太复杂或只是坏了。

我看了@ctwheels的答案，我发现它非常具有解释性和正确性;我们必须为此感谢他。然而，对我来说，如此简单的事情又有太多的“数据”了。

幸运的是，我设法获得了一个数据库，其中仅包含英国的100多万个活动邮政编码，并编写了一个小型PowerShell脚本来测试和基准测试结果。

英国邮政编码规格:有效的邮政编码格式。

这是“我的”正则表达式:

^([a-zA-Z]{1,2}[a-zA-Z\d]{1,2})\s(\d[a-zA-Z]{2})$

简短，简单，甜蜜。即使是最没有经验的人也能明白发生了什么。

解释:

^ asserts position at start of a line
    1st Capturing Group ([a-zA-Z]{1,2}[a-zA-Z\d]{1,2})
        Match a single character present in the list below [a-zA-Z]
        {1,2} matches the previous token between 1 and 2 times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
        a-z matches a single character in the range between a (index 97) and z (index 122) (case sensitive)
        A-Z matches a single character in the range between A (index 65) and Z (index 90) (case sensitive)
        Match a single character present in the list below [a-zA-Z\d]
        {1,2} matches the previous token between 1 and 2 times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
        a-z matches a single character in the range between a (index 97) and z (index 122) (case sensitive)
        A-Z matches a single character in the range between A (index 65) and Z (index 90) (case sensitive)
        \d matches a digit (equivalent to [0-9])
        \s matches any whitespace character (equivalent to [\r\n\t\f\v ])
    2nd Capturing Group (\d[a-zA-Z]{2})
        \d matches a digit (equivalent to [0-9])
        Match a single character present in the list below [a-zA-Z]
        {2} matches the previous token exactly 2 times
        a-z matches a single character in the range between a (index 97) and z (index 122) (case sensitive)
        A-Z matches a single character in the range between A (index 65) and Z (index 90) (case sensitive)
$ asserts position at the end of a line

结果(已核对邮编):

TOTAL OK: 1469193
TOTAL FAILED: 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 5
Seconds           : 22
Milliseconds      : 718
Ticks             : 3227185939
TotalDays         : 0.00373516891087963
TotalHours        : 0.0896440538611111
TotalMinutes      : 5.37864323166667
TotalSeconds      : 322.7185939
TotalMilliseconds : 322718.5939

看看本页的python代码:

http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/archives/001292.html

I've got some postcode parsing to do. The requirement is pretty simple; I have to parse a postcode into an outcode and (optional) incode. The good new is that I don't have to perform any validation - I just have to chop up what I've been provided with in a vaguely intelligent manner. I can't assume much about my import in terms of formatting, i.e. case and embedded spaces. But this isn't the bad news; the bad news is that I have to do it all in RPG. :-( Nevertheless, I threw a little Python function together to clarify my thinking.

我用它来处理邮政编码。