Regex for matching whole words that contain dots

Question

In the following sentence:

I woke up in 5 p.m. today

I want to match the 5 p.m.. This pattern works:

5 p\\         


        

Answer 1

Well, for that specific example, a simple one would be:

\b5 p\.m\.\B

But I doubt that would work very well in more complex source texts.

This article on word boundaries may be of help.