How to use a variable inside a regular expression?

From python 3.6 on you can also use Literal String Interpolation, "f-strings". In your particular case the solution would be:

if re.search(rf"\b(?=\w){TEXTO}\b(?!\w)", subject, re.IGNORECASE):
    ...do something

EDIT:

Since there have been some questions in the comment on how to deal with special characters I'd like to extend my answer:

raw strings ('r'):

One of the main concepts you have to understand when dealing with special characters in regular expressions is to distinguish between string literals and the regular expression itself. It is very well explained here:

In short:

Let's say instead of finding a word boundary \b after TEXTO you want to match the string \boundary. The you have to write:

TEXTO = "Var"
subject = r"Var\boundary"

if re.search(rf"\b(?=\w){TEXTO}\\boundary(?!\w)", subject, re.IGNORECASE):
    print("match")

This only works because we are using a raw-string (the regex is preceded by 'r'), otherwise we must write "\\\\boundary" in the regex (four backslashes). Additionally, without '\r', \b' would not converted to a word boundary anymore but to a backspace!

re.escape:

Basically puts a backslash in front of any special character. Hence, if you expect a special character in TEXTO, you need to write:

if re.search(rf"\b(?=\w){re.escape(TEXTO)}\b(?!\w)", subject, re.IGNORECASE):
    print("match")

NOTE: For any version >= python 3.7: !, ", %, ', ,, /, :, ;, <, =, >, @, and ` are not escaped. Only special characters with meaning in a regex are still escaped. _ is not escaped since Python 3.3.(s. here)

Curly braces:

If you want to use quantifiers within the regular expression using f-strings, you have to use double curly braces. Let's say you want to match TEXTO followed by exactly 2 digits:

if re.search(rf"\b(?=\w){re.escape(TEXTO)}\d{{2}}\b(?!\w)", subject, re.IGNORECASE):
    print("match")

you can try another usage using format grammer suger:

re_genre = r'{}'.format(your_variable)
regex_pattern = re.compile(re_genre)  

here's another format you can use (tested on python 3.7)

regex_str = r'\b(?<=\w)%s\b(?!\w)'%TEXTO

I find it's useful when you can't use {} for variable (here replaced with %s)

from re import search, IGNORECASE

def is_string_match(word1, word2):
    #  Case insensitively function that checks if two words are the same
    # word1: string
    # word2: string | list

    # if the word1 is in a list of words
    if isinstance(word2, list):
        for word in word2:
            if search(rf'\b{word1}\b', word, IGNORECASE):
                return True
        return False

    # if the word1 is same as word2
    if search(rf'\b{word1}\b', word2, IGNORECASE):
        return True
    return False

is_match_word = is_string_match("Hello", "hELLO") 
True

is_match_word = is_string_match("Hello", ["Bye", "hELLO", "@vagavela"])
True

is_match_word = is_string_match("Hello", "Bye")
False

You can use format keyword as well for this.Format method will replace {} placeholder to the variable which you passed to the format method as an argument.

if re.search(r"\b(?=\w)**{}**\b(?!\w)".**format(TEXTO)**, subject, re.IGNORECASE):
    # Successful match**strong text**
else:
    # Match attempt failed

more example

I have configus.yml with flows files

"pattern":
  - _(\d{14})_
"datetime_string":
  - "%m%d%Y%H%M%f"

in python code I use

data_time_real_file=re.findall(r""+flows[flow]["pattern"][0]+"", latest_file)