Regex to find whole words

Question

How would I find if a whole word, i.e. "EU", exists within the String "I am in the EU.", while not also matching cases like "I am in Europe."?

Basically, I'd like some sort of regex for the word i.e. "EU" with non-alphabetical characters on either side.

Answer 1

.*\bEU\b.*

 public static void main(String[] args) {
       String regex = ".*\\bEU\\b.*";
       String text = "EU is an acronym for  EUROPE";
       //String text = "EULA should not match";


       if(text.matches(regex)) {
           System.out.println("It matches");
       } else {
           System.out.println("Doesn't match");
       }

    }