How to match an expression under the cursor?

Question

I'm trying to match an expression under the cursor.

In this case it happens to be reStructuredText, however I don't think that's such an important detail.

:role:`Some Content`

While this works, it depends on the cursor being at the beginning of the expression.

(search-forward-regexp "\\(\\:[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\\:`.+?`\\)" nil t 1)

Since there could be multiple matching expressions on a single line, what's a reliable way to find an expression under the cursor, where the cursor can be anywhere between the start/end of the expression.

Answer 1

You can use thing-at-point-looking-at to get the bounds of the match:

(when (thing-at-point-looking-at "\\(\\:[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\\:`[^`]+`\\)")
  (buffer-substring (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0)))