Lets say I need to match a word word
where there may be a period before word or after word but not both. Then word
, .word
, and word.
should be matched, but .word.
should not be matched. How would I match this and capture what occurred before and after the word?
That was a simplified example that I'll need to extend to more complicated cases. For example, now the symbols .
and '
may occur before or after the word, but they can only occur once. So for example, .word
, 'word
, word.'
, and .word'
are just a few of the valid matches, but something like .'word.'
shouldn't match, or even .'word'
.
The above example is my main priority, but an added bonus would be the order in which the period and apostrophe are added. Thus '.word
and .'word
should both match. I think one way that should work for this is \.?'?|'?\.?word
, but I was hoping for some way where the number of statements in the OR clause doesn't depend on the number of symbols.