Whole-word match only in Django query

Question

I am trying to write a Django query that will only match whole words. Based on the answer here, I've tried something like:

result = Model.objects.filter(text__iregex='\bsomeWord\b')

But this isn't returning the expected result. I also tried

result = Model.objects.filter(text__iregex=r'\bsomeWord\b')

to no avail. My end goal is to be able to pass in a string variable as well, something like:

result = Model.objects.filter(text__iregex=r'\b'+stringVariable+r'\b')

or

result = Model.objects.filter(text__iregex=r'\b %s \b'%stringVariable)

But right now I can't even get it to work with a raw string. I'm using PostgreSQL.

Answer 1

Use “\y” instead of “\b” when you're using PostgreSQL, this is because Django passes your regular expression straight down to PostgreSQL – so your RegEx's need to be compatible with it. You should be able to execute them from psql without any problems.

result = Model.objects.filter(text__iregex=r"\y{0}\y".format(stringVariable))

See https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/functions-matching.html#POSIX-CONSTRAINT-ESCAPES-TABLE