Regex to match words

Question

I'm looking for a Regex (using .NET) to match the word ass. The Regex shouldn't match words like assignment.

How can I do this?

changed tags; C# doesn't support regex ***at all*** - the .NET BCL, however, does — Marc Gravell, May 12 '11 at 07:36
Does this answer your question? [Regex match entire words only](/q/1751301/90527) — outis, Aug 11 '22 at 18:19

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered May 12 '11 at 07:34

5

You are looking for word boundaries (\b):

\bass\b

This will match ass but not bass or assignment.

answered May 12 '11 at 07:34

Daniel Hilgarth

1

And, since this is C# (although @Marc removed that tag), take care to use verbatim strings: `@"\bass\b"`. If you forget the `@`, the `\b` means backspace. – Tim Pietzcker May 12 '11 at 09:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '11 at 07:34

1

How about \bass\b ? This uses word boundaries to limit it to the single word.

answered May 12 '11 at 07:34

Marc Gravell

paxdiablo · Answer 3 · 2011-05-12T07:40:09.800

1

Most modern regular expression engines support the \b anchor, meaning a zero-width word boundary.

See this page for some examples using that (and other) anchor characters.

edited May 12 '11 at 07:40

answered May 12 '11 at 07:34

paxdiablo

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 12 '11 at 07:36

1

Visit this page for full manual Word Boundaries

answered May 12 '11 at 07:36

Saleh

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 12 '11 at 07:36

0

Will this work for you?

\bass\b

answered May 12 '11 at 07:36

UserControl

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered May 12 '11 at 07:54

0

\b(ass)\b or \bass\b should be good.

answered May 12 '11 at 07:54

locoboy

6 Answers6