Way to have String.Replace only hit "whole words"

Question

I need a way to have this:

"test, and test but not testing.  But yes to test".Replace("test", "text") 

return this:

"text, and text but not testing.  But yes to text" 

Basically I want to replace whole words, but not partial matches.

NOTE: I am going to have to use VB for this (SSRS 2008 code), but C# is my normal language, so responses in either are fine.

Answer 1

A regex is the easiest approach:

string input = "test, and test but not testing.  But yes to test"; string pattern = @"\btest\b"; string replace = "text"; string result = Regex.Replace(input, pattern, replace); Console.WriteLine(result); 

The important part of the pattern is the \b metacharacter, which matches on word boundaries. If you need it to be case-insensitive use RegexOptions.IgnoreCase:

Regex.Replace(input, pattern, replace, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);