Whitespace is actually \s. But [\s]disc[whatever] doesn't do the job - then it won't match "(disc)", which counts as "disc appearing as a full word.
Ok, then this works: import re test = """ disc (disc) foo disc bar discuss """.split("\n") for t in test: if re.search(r"(^|[^\w])(disc)($|[^\w])", t): print "success:", t
Also I think you have ^ and $ backwards, and there's a ^ I don't understand. I _think_ that a correct version
Yep, sorry for the confusion. Diez -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list