In regular expressions you can use the zero-width pattern \b to match the beginning or end of a word:

note.title =~ /\bfoo\b/

Rails Long Term Support

Rails LTS provides security patches for old versions of Ruby on Rails (2.3, 3.2, 4.2 and 5.2)

• Prevents you from data breaches and liability risks
• Upgrade at your own pace
• Works with modern Rubies

Read more Show archive.org snapshot

Unfortunately \b is not available in MySQL. You can use [[:<:]] and [[:>:]] to match the beginning and end of a word instead:

SELECT * FROM notes WHERE title REGEXP "[[:<:]]foo[[:>:]]"

These markers are unique to MySQL and not available in Ruby regular expressions.