CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexgo
vthallam
vthallam

Reputation: 621

How to look for exact matching word using Golang regexp?

I am trying to find words in a large text file. The MatchString method doesn't inherently look for exact word match, rather it looks for the pattern as it should.

How does one check for exact word match using regexp package in Golang? I have tried some regex'es i found on SO, but it didn't work.

Upvotes: 6

Views: 14998

Answers (2)

Gonzalo
Gonzalo

Reputation: 369

If you want to just exactly search for word string in a large file. You should be using line anchors (https://www.regular-expressions.info/anchors.html)

You must use:

regexp.MatchString("(?sm)^word$", test)

The (?sm) flags enables the following:

  • s as single-line (dotall)
  • m for multi-line parsing

E.g. With the following list

word-
myword 
thiswordis
word2
aloja
_word_
.word
word

The pattern regexp.MatchString("(?sm)^word$", test) will only match the last word line.

If you use \b word boudary, you will match the first word- making this an inexact match.

Upvotes: 2

Adrian
Adrian

Reputation: 46442

Use the zero-length word boundry sequence \b: https://play.golang.org/p/-f0KEKb2EbF

regexp.MatchString("\\bword\\b", test)

Upvotes: 5

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