Regular expressions, difference between [-] and -

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I am working with some regular expressions and I came across the following case:

string pattern = @"^.{2,9}[-].{4}[-].{4}$";
string pattern = @"^.{2,9}-.{4}-.{4}$";

I would like to understand, what is the difference between using hifén [-] or only -?

regex

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The square brackets (square brackets []) serve to specify character lists to validate (match). In this case there is no difference because you are only specifying one character -

But when used with two or more characters, it specifies a list, for example a list that matches characters between 1 and 5 inclusive: [1-5]

Another example would be a list of a to z: [a-z]

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