Possible to limit to scope/range of a lookahead - regex

Question

We can check to see if a digit is in a password, for example, by doing something like:
(?=.*\d)
Or if there's a digit and lowercase with:
(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])
This will basically go on "until the end" to check whether there's a letter in the string.
However, I was wondering if it's possible in some sort of generic way to limit the scope of a lookahead. Here's a basic example which I'm hoping will demonstrate the point:
start_of_string;
middle_of_string;
end_of_string;
I want to use a single regular expression to match against start_of_string + middle_of_string + end_of_string.
Is it possible to use a lookahead/lookbehind in the middle_of_string section WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT COMES BEFORE OR AFTER IT? That is, not knowing the size or contents of the preceding/succeeding string component. And limit the scope of the lookahead to only what is contained in that portion of the string?
Let's take one example:
start_of_string = 'start'
middle_of_string = '123'
end_of_string = 'ABC'
Would it be possible to check the contents of each part but limit it's scope like this?
string = 'start123ABC'
# Check to make sure the first part has a letter, the second part has a number and the third part has a capital
((?=.*[a-z]).*) # limit scope to the first part only!!
((?=.*[0-9]).*) # limit scope to only the second part.
((?=.*[A-Z]).*) # limit scope to only the last part.
In other words, can lookaheads/lookbehinds be "chained" with other components of a regex without it screwing up the entire regex?
UPDATE:
Here would be an example, hopefully this is more helpful to the question:
START_OF_STRING = 'abc'
Does 'x' exist in it? (?=.*x) ==> False
END_OF_STRING = 'cdxoy'
Does 'y' exist in it? (?=.*y) ==> True
FULL_STRING = START_OF_STRING + END_OF_STRING
'abcdxoy'
Is it possible to chain the two regexes together in any sort of way to only wok on its 'substring' component?
For example, now (?=.*x) in the first part of the string would return True, but it should not.
`((?=.*x)(?=.*y)).*`
I think the short answer to this is "No, it's not possible.", but am looking to hear from someone who understands this to tell why it is or isn't.

Answer 1

In .NET and javascript you could use a positive lookahead at the start of your string component and a negative lookbehind at the end of it to "constrain" the match. Example:
.*(?=.*arrow)(?<middle>.*)(?<=.*arrow).*
helloarrowxyz
{'middle': 'arrow'}
If in pcre, python, or other you would need to either have a fixed width lookahead to constraint it from going too far forward, such as what Wiktor Stribiżew says above:
.*(?=.{0,5}arrow)(?<middle>.{0,5}).*
Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible to do without either a fixed-width lookahead or a variable width look-behind.