JavaScript RegExp \b Metacharacter

Search for "LO" at the beginning of a word:

let text = "HELLO, LOOK AT YOU";
let pattern = /\bLO/;

Description

The \b metacharacter matches at the beginning or end of a word.

Search for the pattern LO at the beginning of a word like this:
\bLO

Search for the pattern LO at the end of a word like this:
LO\b

/\b/ is an ECMAScript1 (ES1) feature.

ES1 (JavaScript 1997) is fully supported in all browsers:


Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Safari	Opera	IE
Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

new RegExp("\\b regexp")

or simply:

/\b regexp/

new RegExp("\\b regexp", "g")

or simply:

/\b regexp/g

Search for "LO" at the END of a word:

let text = "HELLO, LOOK AT YOU";
let pattern = /LO\b/;

In JavaScript, a regular expression text search, can be done with different methods.

With a pattern as a regular expression, these are the most common methods: