I have a text and I want to match several words like this "(controller|
data|IT)?" at least one of the words in the group should be mandatory,
but I dont want to match a word that is part of another word like this
"datamanager" it should only match the word "data" or any other word
in the group.

Any suggestions?

Kris wrote:

I have a text and I want to match several words like this "(controller|
data|IT)?" at least one of the words in the group should be mandatory,
but I dont want to match a word that is part of another word like this
"datamanager" it should only match the word "data" or any other word
in the group.
>
Any suggestions?

You know there are classes for characters, like \w? Well there are
classes for non characters:
^ Start of Line or Data
$ End of Line or Data
\b Word-boundery, change from \w to \W

- "(\b(controller|data|IT)\b)?"

But some letters like German umlaute may be seen as Non-Word-Elements,
depending on your the encoding.

In this cases you may try search for your words between non letters.
- "((\s|^)(controller|data|IT)(\s|$))?"

what about data-base?

Heiko
--
http://portal.richler.de/ Namensportal zu Richler
http://www.richler.de/ Heiko Richler: Computer - Know How!
http://www.richler.info/ private Homepage

On Feb 28, 11:29 am, Heiko Richler <heiko-rich...@nefkom.netwrote:

Kris wrote:

>

>
You know there are classes for characters, like \w? Well there are
classes for non characters:
^ Start of Line or Data
$ End of Line or Data
\b Word-boundery, change from \w to \W
>
- "(\b(controller|data|IT)\b)?"
>
But some letters like German umlaute may be seen as Non-Word-Elements,
depending on your the encoding.
>
In this cases you may try search for your words between non letters.
- "((\s|^)(controller|data|IT)(\s|$))?"
>
what about data-base?
>
Heiko
--http://portal.richler.de/Namensportal zu Richlerhttp://www.richler.de/ Heiko Richler: Computer - Know How!http://www.richler.info/ private Homepage

Hi Heiko

thanks for the reply

I know about boundaries and such, just couldnt get it to work, now I
see why, I had tesed \b(controller...)\b which didnt work as intended.

Kris