Regex match last word in string ending in

Question

I want to regex match the last word in a string where the string ends in ... The match should be the word preceding the ...

Example: "Do not match this. This sentence ends in the last word..."

The match would be word. This gets close: \b\s+([^.]*). However, I don't know how to make it work with only matching ... at the end.

This should NOT match: "Do not match this. This sentence ends in the last word."

Answer 1

If you use \s+ it means there must be at least a single whitespace char preceding so in that case it will not match word... only.

If you want to use the negated character class, you could also use

([^\s.]+)\.{3}$

• ( Capture group 1
  • [^\s.]+ Match 1+ times any char except a whitespace char or dot
• ) Close group
• \.{3} Match 3 dots
• $ End of string

Regex demo