C# Regular Expression Complete Word Match

In C#, it is common to use regular expressions to find specific words in a given string. However, ensuring that only matches the entire word can be challenging.

question:

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

Solution:

To solve this problem, the word separator (\b) must be merged into the regular expression. The word separator marks the beginning and end of the word boundary, ensuring that matches occur only if the target word is a complete word rather than a part of a larger term.

Code Fix:

The updated regular expression containing word separators is:

\b(shoes|shirt|pants)\b

In C# code:

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

Use this modified regular expression, only words that exactly match "shoes", "shirt", or "pants" will be recognized, thus preventing false matches such as "participants".