I am trying to modify a the xml file for a tmLanguage and i want to add a keyword to match word=. I can use obviously use regex to find word but when i add the = sign it can't find word=. I tried to escape the character but no luck. Any other ideas?
<dict>
<key>match</key>
<string>(?:\b(word=)\b)</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>keyword.other.ixml</string>
</dict>
You have word boundaries at both ends of word= and that means word= should be preceded by a non-word character (as the first \b is before a word character w) and followed by a word character (as the second \b is after a non-word character). It matches ,word=n, for example.
More details about a word boundary:
There are three different positions that qualify as word boundaries:
- Before the first character in the string, if the first character is a word character.
- After the last character in the string, if the last character is a word character.
- Between two characters in the string, where one is a word character and the other is not a word character.
If you plan to match word= in all cases where it starts with w, just use the first \b and remove the last one.
So, replace <string>(?:\b(word=)\b)</string> with:
<string>\bword=</string>
See this regex demo
I also removed unnecessary groupings (...).
As an alternative, if you just do not want non-word characters appear before and after the `word=, use lookarounds:
<string>(?<!\w)word=(?!\w)</string>
