Question

Below the first Debug returns ‘unsbuscrib”d and the second returns unsbuscrib”d. The difference is the leading ‘.

What I would like is for both to return unsbuscrib”d.

    string textText = " 'unsbuscrib''d' ";
    Regex rTest = new Regex(@"\b(ab)|(['\w]+)\b");
    if (rTest.IsMatch(textText))
    {
        Debug.WriteLine(rTest.Match(textText).Value);
    }
    rTest = new Regex(@"\b(['\w]+)\b");
    if (rTest.IsMatch(textText))
    {
        Debug.WriteLine(rTest.Match(textText).Value);
    }

The fix was @”\b((ab)|([‘\w]+))\b” thanks to Guffa

Answer 1

That’s because the first regular expression matches \b(ab) or (['\w]+)\b.

It will include the apostrophe at the beginning, as it uses the second part, where there is no requirement of a word boundary at the beginning.

The second regular expression requires a word boundary at the beginning, and there is no word boundary between the space and the apostrophe. The first word boundary is between the apostrophe and the letter u.