> \b{wb} doesn't seem to take initial ones as part of words

good catch!

> my conclusion is that the only way to handle the OP problem in a way fully consistent with \w{wb} semantics is to just split using it, and maybe repack non word fragments afterwards

My intuition says split on non-words like whitespace, reject "words" without \w or equivalent characters and repack the rest afterwards.

I doubt it's possible to cover all desirable edge cases by \b{wb} this will depend on the user's perspective, especially when considering multi-language environments and unicode.

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery

In reply to Re^6: Splitting multiline string into words, the stuff between words, and newlines by LanX
in thread Splitting multiline string into words, the stuff between words, and newlines by ibm1620

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