How to make preg_match to find whole word but not separate hyphen-words?

Question

if (preg_match(\'#\\b\'.$rawword.\'\\b#i\',$body)) {   

This code finds whole words, but if they are a hyphen word like \"ABLE-BODIED\" it will find AB

Answer 1

You can use lookbehind and lookahead operators. This operators looks in behind and after but not match them.

for example use \b(?<!-)xyz(?!-)\b for finding whole words of xyz that doesn't have - before or after.