Is \bword\b and \ equivalent in GREP and what usage of \<, \>?

Question

Is \bword\b and \<word\> equivalent in GREP and what usage of \<, \> ?

Answer 1

I think the meaning is the same. But \b is Perl and \< > is Unix. For more details.

Answer 2

The only difference is that

• \< matches the empty string at the beginning of the word;
• \> matches the empty string at the end of the word;
• \b matches the empty string at both the beginning and the end of the word.

Well, I bet this is not news for you :) but this is the only difference so you can any of these operators. I would vaguely suggest that \< and \> are a bit more readable, but it is more a taste question than anything else.