Regex to match a word with + (plus) signs

Question

I've spent some time, but still have to solution. I need regular expression that is able to match a words with signs in it (like c++) in string.

I've used /\bword\b/, for "usual" words, it works OK. But as soon as I try /\bC\+\+\b/ it just does not work. It some how works wrong with a plus signs in it.

I need a regex to detect if input string contains c++ word in it. Input like,

"c++ developer"
"using c++ language" 

etc.

ps. Using C#, .Net Regex.Match function.

Thanks for help!

Answer 1

+ is a special character so you need to escape it

\bC\+\+(?!\w)

Note that we can't use \b because + is not a word-character.

Answer 2

The problem isn't with the plus character, that you've escaped correctly, but the \b sequence. It indicates a word boundary, which is a point between a word character (alphanumeric) and something else. Plus isn't a word character, so for \b to match, there would need to be a word character directly after the last plus sign.

\bC\+\+\b matches "Test C++Test" but not "Test C++ Test" for example. Try something like \bC\+\+\s if you expect there to be a whitespace after the last plus sign.