Get the 1st word of the string with RegEx

Question

I am trying to match the 1st word in a string with RegEx.

I know how to match the 1st word if the 1st chain of characters is a word, but the problem is when my string starts with ; for example.

^([\w\-]+)

Works with

This is my sentence.

but does not with

; This is my sentence

My goal is to match the 1st word

This

Independently which character(s) is before.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Try this pattern:

^\W*([\w-]+)

It is anchored at the beginning of the string (^) and allows an arbitrary amount of leading non-word characters (\W*) before the first word is matched in the pattern's first group (([\w-]+)).