Question

Regex to match string containing two names in any order has a good explanation of how to match strings in any order. So using

(?=.*\bjack\b)(?=.*\bjames\b)

Will match

jack,james

and

james,jack

However, it will also match

jack,james,jill

How can I construct a regex to match string in any order, but only match those string (i.e. a regex that will match jack and james in any order, but not match a string that contains anything other than jack and james)

Answer 1

It depends on what exactly you mean by “anything other than jack and james”, but the general idea would be to match some number of \b(jack|james)\b, surrounded by other characters:

^\W*(\b(jack|james)\b\W*)*$

You can specify the exact number, or range, of matches instead of using *. For example, to match exactly 2 or 3 such words:

^\W*(\b(jack|james)\b\W*){2,3}$