Forums Scripts & Popups regex to return space/empty but not character

Been trying to figure this one out and it's stumped me.
Trying to find a regex that will match 'word' but only if there is either a space, nothing, or punctuation on either side.
So, if the word was cat:
"cat" matches
" cat" matches
" cat? " matches
"scatting" doesn't match
I tried "[^a-zA-Z0-9] $+ %word $+ [^a-zA-Z0-9]" but that still demands a space either side. I know it sounds simple, but I can't figure it out. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

Take a look at word boundaries in regex. \b and \w. If you want to match an actual space, there is \s, but I don't think that's what you need for what you're doing.

Example: /\bword\b/g

That will match the examples you gave.

Thanks, that did the trick.