Do not match word boundary beetwen parenthesis with python regex -

i have:

 regex = r'\bon the\b' 

but need regex match if keyword (actually "on the") not between parentheses in text:

should match:

john on beach let me put on fridge (my son) on beach arnold on road (to home) 

should not match:

(my son )on beach john @ beach bob @ pool (berkeley) spon (is on table) 

i don't think regex here general case. examples, regex work want to:

((?<=[^\(\)].{3})\bon the\b(?=.{3}[^\(\)]) 

description:

(?<=[^\(\)].{3}) positive lookbehind - assert regex below                   can matched     [^\(\)] match single character not present in list below         \( matches character ( literally         \) matches character ) literally     .{3} matches character (except newline)         quantifier: 3 times \b assert position @ word boundary (^\w|\w$|\w\w|\w\w) on matches characters on literally (case sensitive) \b assert position @ word boundary (^\w|\w$|\w\w|\w\w) (?=.{3}[^\(\)]) positive lookahead - assert regex below                  can matched     .{3} matches character (except newline)         quantifier: 2 times     [^\(\)] match single character not present in list below         \( matches character ( literally         \) matches character ) literally 

if want generalize problem string between parentheses , string searching for, not work regex. issue length of string between parentheses , string. in regex lookbehind quantifiers not allowed indefinite.

in regex used positive lookahead , positive lookbehind, same result achieved negative ones, issue remains.

suggestion: write small python code can check whole line if contain text not between parentheses, regex alone can't job.

example:

import re mystr = 'on the' unwanted = re.findall(r'\(.*'+mystr+'.*\)|\)'+mystr, data) # <- here put un-wanted string series, easy define regex # delete un-wanted strings line in mylist:     item in unwanted:         if item in line:             mylist.remove(line) # want line in mylist:     if mystr in line:         print line 

where:

mylist: list contains lines want search through. mystr: string want find. 

hope helped.