using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.IO; using System.Linq; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; public class Test { public static void Main() { var strings = new List { "1 abcd", "abcd 1", "1 abcd 1"}; var pattern = "(^)?abcd(?(1)|$)"; foreach (var s in strings) { Console.WriteLine("{0} => {1}", s, Regex.IsMatch(s, pattern)); } } }