How to Match Entire Words Only Using Regular Expressions in C#?

C# regular expression complete word matching

In C#, it is very common to use regular expressions to find specific words in a given string. However, ensuring that only whole words are matched can be challenging.

Question:

When trying to match words like "shoes", "shirt" or "pants" using the regex keyword s it will inadvertently match words like "participants". This is because regular expressions lack a mechanism to differentiate between words and substrings.

Solution:

To solve this problem, word separators (b) must be incorporated into the regular expression. Word separators mark the beginning and end of word boundaries, ensuring that a match only occurs when the target word is a complete word rather than a part of a larger term.

Code correction:

The updated regular expression containing word separators is:

<code>\b(shoes|shirt|pants)\b</code>

In C# code:

Regex.Match(content, @"\b(shoes|shirt|pants)\b");

With this fixed regular expression, only words that exactly match "shoes", "shirt" or "pants" will be recognized, preventing false matches like "participants".

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