Regex to exclude first and last characters of match

Question

I've the following string: word_word2_word3_word4

My intention is to extract only 'test2'. Using _\w*?_ as string match, I can get 'word2' as match, but I can't see a way of removing those underscores to match only 'word2'.

I can't use .split() or something like it, this value must be gathered using Regex only.

What modifications do you suggest guys?

Answer 1

You can also use positive lookahead and lookbehind

(?<=_)\w*2(?=_)

My intention is to extract only 'test2'. Using \w*? as string match, I can get 'word2' as a match, but I can't see a way of removing those underscores to match only 'word2'.

The underscores won't be part of the matching string but will be before and after it

EDIT:

Going further, if the match string is on the beginning or end of the whole text, it won't be surrounded by underscores.

(?<=_|^)[^_]*2(?=_|$)

This one makes optional the use of underscore in this specific situation.

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