This control uses a mask to distinguish between proper and improper user input. For example: to force a user to fill out a date (e.g. a date of birth) in the masked text box a setting the property Mask to value of “90/90/0000” provides a text template for the user to type. Actual date value however should be validated by setting a regular expression validation.
Mask syntax:
The masked text box uses the standard Microsoft.NET MaskedTextProvider mask syntax (for full information see the .NET Framework SDK).
Mask Character | Accepts | Required? |
0 | Digit (0-9) | Required |
9 | Digit (0-9) or space | Optional |
# | Digit (0-9) or space | Required |
L | Letter (a-z, A-Z) | Required |
? | Letter (a-z, A-Z) | Optional |
& | Any character | Required |
C | Any character | Optional |
A | Alphanumeric (0-9, a-z, A-Z) | Required |
a | Alphanumeric (0-9, a-z, A-Z) | Optional |
. | Decimal separator | Required |
, | Group (thousands) separator | Required |
: | Time separator | Required |
/ | Date separator | Required |
$ | Currency symbol | Required |
There is a few of other characters with special meaning:
Mask Character | Meaning |
< | All subsequent characters are converted to lower case |
> | All subsequent characters are converted to upper case |
| | Terminates a previous < or > sequence |
\ | Escape: treat the next character in the mask as literal text rather than a mask symbol |