pattern matchin using javascript doesnt wrk when special characters and numbers come in between

Question

I am trying to create a pattern matching to find word contents in an article for my website.. I am unable to make the pattern matchings when a special character or a number come

Answer 1

I think the problem has to do with the boundaries you choose for your words, I believe that with \b you are not taking into account the case where the word is has a dot before (like ".cancer9". But I'm really not an expert in regex... so, I worked a little bit and got this solution, but I'm not sure if it will work for you:

Javascript:

$(document).ready(function () {
  var $test = $('#article');
  var entityText = $('#entity').html().replace(/\./g, "\\\.").replace(/\$/g, "\\\$").replace(/\?/g, "\\\?"); //etc...
  var entityRegularExpression =new RegExp("([^a-zA-Z0-9])(" + entityText + ")([^a-zA-Z0-9])", "gi");
  var highlight = '$1<span class="highlight">$2</span>$3';
  $test.html($test.html().replace(entityRegularExpression, highlight));
});

And here you have a working demo: http://jsfiddle.net/ehzPQ/20/

Let me know if it works for you.