Question

I’m trying to remove a specific word from a certain string using the function replace() or replaceAll() but these remove all the occurrences of this word even if it’s part of another word!

Example:

String content = "is not like is, but mistakes are common";
content = content.replace("is", "");

output: "not like , but mtakes are common"

desired output: "not like , but mistakes are common"

How can I substitute only whole words from a string?

Answer 1

What the heck,

String regex = "\\s*\\bis\\b\\s*";
content = content.replaceAll(regex, "");

Remember you need to use replaceAll(...) to use regular expressions, not replace(...)

• \\b gives you the word boundaries
• \\s* sops up any white space on either side of the word being removed (if you want to remove this too).