Regexp - match specific word allowing special characters

Question

I wanna make a regular expression to find specific word allowing special characters( \\W ). For example, if the word is replace then:

• replace matched.
• replace( , $replace , replace , replace matched because of allowing special characters.
• areplace , replacea not matched because of a .

It seems like I have to use (?=) operator, but I have no idea about how to use it.

Answer 1

You may use this regex with word breaks and allowing any non-word, non-whitespace on either side:

[^\w\s]*\breplace\b[^\w\s]*

RegEx Demo

RegEx Details:

• [^\\w\\s]0 : Match optional 0+ non-word and non-whitespace character
• \\b : Word boundary
• replace : match text replace
• \\b : Word boundary
• [^\\w\\s]? : Match optional 0+ non-word and non-whitespace character