Match Whole Words

Word boundary

\b<word>\b matches a whole word

\b strictly matches the following positions:

• Before the first character in subject string

• After the last character in subject string

• Between a word character and a character that is not a word character in subject string

• \b<wordchar> and <nonwordchar>\b only match at the start of a word

• <wordchar>\b and \b<nonwordchar> only match at the end of a word

• \b<wordchar>\b and \b<nonwordchar>\b match nothing

Nonboundary

\B strictly matches the following positions:

• Before the first character in subject string if it's not a word character
• After the last character in subject string if it's not a word character
• Between two word characters
• Between two nonword characters
• Empty string