Issue with Laravel Rules & Regex (OR) operator

http://laravel.com/docs/validation#rule-regex

regex:pattern

The field under validation must match the given regular expression.

Note: When using the regex pattern, it may be necessary to specify rules in an array instead >of using pipe delimiters, especially if the regular expression contains a pipe character.

To clarify:You would do something like this

$rules = array('test' => array('size:5', 'regex:foo'));

You should use an array instead of separating rules using |:

'cid' => array('required', 'regex:/^((comp)|(soen)|(engr)|(elec))\d{3}$/i')

The pipe (|) sigh is available in your regular expression pattern so it's conflicting with the separator. Other answer already stated it.

I use this style and save my life :-)

change code from

    $validator = Validator::make(    $request->all(),        [        'name' => 'required|string',        'initial_credit' => 'required|integer|between:0,1000000|regex:/[1-9][0-9]*0000$/'        ]    ]);

to

    $validator = Validator::make(    $request->all(),        [        'name' => 'required|string',        'initial_credit' => [ // <=== Convert To Array            'required',            'integer',            'between:0,1000000',            'regex:/([1-9][0-9]*0000$)|([0])/' // <=== Use pipe | in regex        ] // <=== End Array    ]);