Match a word but not a larger word

Question

I want a regex to match rov but there's a thousand occurences of prov that I'm not interested in, so I need to match rov but exclude prov.

I've tried /((?!prov).)*(rov)/i but that still matches the rov part in the word prov. I also tried /((?!prov).)*(^rov)/i but I can't use it, I need to match words like CreateRov, I can't use ^ or \b.

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You could use a negative lookahead to assert what is on the right is not prov right after matching a word boundary.

Then match rov between matching 0+ word characters on the left and right.

\b(?!\w*prov)\w*rov\w*\b

• \b Word boundary
• (?!\w*prov) Negative lookahead, assert what is on the right is not prov
• \w*rov\w* Match rov between matching 0+ word chars on the left an right
• \b Word boundary

Regex demo