Regex how to match all punctuations but exclude some conditions

Question

I can use \\p{Punct} to match all punctuations(including underscore).

And I wanted to exclude all apostrophes strictly inside a word.

Answer 1

You could group all punctuations, you are interested in, manually and exclude the apostrophe. Then combine that group with your rule for finding the right apostrophes (that are not within a word) by an OR.

Answer 2

You can combine three conditions here.

1. Match all punctuation except apostrophe ' using [\p{Punct}&&[^']]

2. Match all apostrophe not followed by a letter.

3. Match all apostrophe not preceded by a letter.

Regex: [\p{Punct}&&[^']]|(?<![a-zA-Z])'|'(?![a-zA-Z])

Explanation:

• [\\p{Punct}&&[^']] excludes apostrophe from punctuation class.

• (?<![a-zA-Z])' matches apostrophe not preceded by a letter.

• '(?![a-zA-Z]) matches the apostrophe not followed by a letter.

RegexPlanet Fiddle