regex - Match "word" but not "word (whatever)"?

Question

I have a string, it can either be "word" or "word (something)". How can I only match "word", but not "word (something)"?

Answer 1

Depending on the regex flavor, you can probably use a negative lookahead. Like this:

word(?! (something))

Just checks to make sure there isn't a space and the word something after the matched word.

Oh, and if you have JUST the word "word" in the string, you could do:

^word$

which makes sure that word is the start (^) and the end ($) of the string.

But if you had JUST the word "word" in the string, you could have just done

wordString == "word"; // or wordVariable in place of "word", or whatever