>perl -wMstrict -le "use Test::More 'no_plan'; ;; for my $ar_vector ( [ YES => 'equity, private equity', ], [ YES => 'equity', ], [ no => 'private equity', ], [ YES => 'private equity,equity', ], [ YES => 'private equity, equity', ], [ no => 'equity,private equity', ], [ no => 'private equity', ], [ no => 'mutual funds', ], [ no => 'cds' ], ) { my ($expected, $string) = @$ar_vector; is match($string), $expected, qq{'$string'}; } ;; sub match { my ($string) = @_; ;; my $char_not_comma_or_space = qr{ [^,\s] }xms; my $private = qr{ private \s+ }xms; return 'YES' if $string =~ m{ (?: $char_not_comma_or_space | $private) equity (*SKIP)(*FAIL) | equity (?! , \S) }xms; return 'no', } " ok 1 - 'equity, private equity' ok 2 - 'equity' ok 3 - 'private equity' ok 4 - 'private equity,equity' ok 5 - 'private equity, equity' ok 6 - 'equity,private equity' ok 7 - 'private equity' ok 8 - 'mutual funds' ok 9 - 'cds' 1..9