You should be using raw strings in your code
>>> x = 'one two three'
>>> y = re.search(r"\btwo\b", x)
>>> y
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x100418a58>
>>>
Also, why don't you try
word = 'two'
re.compile(r'\b%s\b' % word, re.I)
Output:
>>> word = 'two'
>>> k = re.compile(r'\b%s\b' % word, re.I)
>>> x = 'one two three'
>>> y = k.search( x)
>>> y
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x100418850>
Answer from pyfunc on Stack OverflowYou should be using raw strings in your code
>>> x = 'one two three'
>>> y = re.search(r"\btwo\b", x)
>>> y
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x100418a58>
>>>
Also, why don't you try
word = 'two'
re.compile(r'\b%s\b' % word, re.I)
Output:
>>> word = 'two'
>>> k = re.compile(r'\b%s\b' % word, re.I)
>>> x = 'one two three'
>>> y = k.search( x)
>>> y
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x100418850>
This will work: re.search(r"\btwo\b", x)
When you write "\b" in Python, it is a single character: "\x08". Either escape the backslash like this:
"\\b"
or write a raw string like this:
r"\b"
What is a word boundary in regex? - Stack Overflow
Add (7) Word Space - Exclude Non-Alphanumeric Characters
Can someone explain to me what "\b" does in reg expressions?
Understanding \b word boundaries of regex syntax
I have read several guides and posts on reddit and just cannot understand it whatsoever. :/
A word boundary, in most regex dialects, is a position between \w and \W (non-word char), or at the beginning or end of a string if it begins or ends (respectively) with a word character ([0-9A-Za-z_]).
So, in the string "-12", it would match before the 1 or after the 2. The dash is not a word character.
In the course of learning regular expression, I was really stuck in the metacharacter which is \b. I indeed didn't comprehend its meaning while I was asking myself "what it is, what it is" repetitively. After some attempts by using the website, I watch out the pink vertical dashes at the every beginning of words and at the end of words. I got it its meaning well at that time. It's now exactly word(\w)-boundary.
My view is merely to immensely understanding-oriented. Logic behind of it should be examined from another answers.
