I'll preface this question by mentioning that while I'm far from a regular expressions guru, they are not completely foreign to me. Building a regular expression to search for a pattern inside a particular string generally isn't a problem for me, but I have a (maybe?) unique situation.

I have a set of values, say:


  028938
  DEF567987
  390987.456
  GHI345928.039  


I want to match a certain set of strings, such as:


Strings composed of exactly 6 digits
Strings composed of exactly 6 digits, a decimal, followed by exactly 3 more digits


In the above examples, the first and third values should be matched.

I'm using the regular expressions:

[0-9]{6}
[0-9]{6}.[0-9]{3}


Unfortunately, since all the above examples contain the specified pattern, all values are matched. This is not my intention.

So my question, in a nutshell, is how to write a regular expression that matches a string exactly and completely, with no additional characters to the right or left of the matched pattern? Is there a term for this type of matching? (Google was no help.) TIA


Question: What is the difference between Cajun and Creole cuisine?
Answer: Both Cajun and Creole cuisines originate from French/European influence but there's a specific difference between them -

Cajun is French 'provincial' cuisine adapted by local workers for and with local ingredients.

Creole is French 'aristocratic' cuisine as practised in the better off households of the south and mimicking the influences of higher quality French/European cuisine but still having local Cajun influence using higher quality but still local ingredients.

Both cuisines have French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian (European) influences, reflecting the previous occupants of the southern territories as well as African and Native American influences.