Regular expressions are a powerful tool for manipulating text and data. If you don't use them yet, you will discover in this book a whole new world of mastery over your data. If you already use them, you'll appreciate this book's unprecedented detail and breadth of coverage. If you think you know all you need to know about regular expressions, this book is a stunning eye-opener. With regular expressions, you can save yourself time and aggravation while dealing with documents, mail messages, log files -- you name it -- any type of text or data. For example, regular expressions can play a vital role in constructing a World Wide Web CGI script, which can involve text and data of all sorts. Regular expressions are not a tool in and of themselves, but are included as part of a larger utility. The classic example is grep. These days, regular expressions can be found everywhere, such as in:

• Scripting languages (including Perl, Tcl, awk, and Python)
• Editors (including Emacs, vi, and Nisus Writer)
• Programming environments (including Delphi and Visual C++)

While many of these tools originated on UNIX, they are now available for a wide variety of platforms, including DOS/Windows and MacOS, so you can use them in your home environment. Additionally, many favorite programming languages offer regular-expression libraries, so you can include support for them in your own programs, and yes, even applets. There can be certain subtle, but valuable, ways to think when you're using regular expressions, and these can be taught. Jeffrey Friedl has spent years helping people on the Net understand and use regular expressions. In this book he leads you through the steps of knowing exactly how to craft a regular expression to get the job done. Regular expressions are not used in a vacuum. In this book, a variety of tools are examined and used in an extensive array of examples, with a major focus on Perl. Perl is extremely well endowed with rich and expressive regular expressions. Yet what is power in the hands of an expert can be fraught with peril for the unwary. This book will help you navigate the minefield to becoming an expert.

Rating:

Rating:

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Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  October 24 2001
Submitted by Emil Wayers   [Respond | View]



It's fantastic. Cannot explain, with, more, words.




Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  July 30 2001
Submitted by Serafim Junior Fagundes   [Respond | View]

WOW!

What an incredible book to read. Jeffrey Friedl made a big effort to describe a not so easy programming technique, into a full comprehensive matter. This isn't an easy subject to write about. The author made a very interesting gift to us all.

The book would need an update though.


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  February 22 2001
Submitted by Dave Lindquist   [Respond | View]

This is an exceptional book. Mr. Friedl has the rare ability to take a potentially dry subject like Regular Expressions and produce and enlightening, entertaining, and thoroughly addicting book. I especially like his conversational style and inclusion of humorous anecdotes like his experience explaining the term "Regular Expressions" to his Japanese colleagues.

If you don't already know Regular Expressions, you need this book. If you think you already know Regular Expressions like the back of your hand, you really need this book!


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  November 18 2000
Submitted by Martin A.   [Respond | View]



Have you ever had a school teacher that just loves what he or she is teaching? Loves it so much the lessons become interesting no matter how tedious or difficult the matter of the lessons are? Well, this is a book written in that sprit. I never expected regexes to be fun, but now I am a addict ...

This is a tough book to read through, but it is well written and even a non-programmer like me can enjoy it. On and off it goes so deep into the magic world of regexes I loose my directions, but for the most part it is reasonable hands-on and does teach a lot of good regex common sense.

If you really want to utilise regexes for getting things done -- beyond what search and replace in word processors provide -- this book is a must have. And fun: I had never realised the impact of a thing such as nothingness before I read this book ...


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  April 21 2000
Submitted by TEd BROWn   [Respond | View]



Two words: Deep Magic.


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  April 21 2000
Submitted by TEd BROWn   [Respond | View]



Two words: Deep Magic.


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  August 24 1999
Submitted by Chris X Edwards   [Respond | View]



I did read it straight through up to chapter 7 (which was ostensibly Perl-centric). I felt like much of the material here was for the benefit of people like Larry Wall and John Ousterhout. I'm no dummy (I once wrote a crude "search & replace" facility for an HP48 calculator of all things), but a lot of material was a bit beyond what I would need. I just wanted something to help me do what I needed to do in vi without reading the help docs which don't help at all.

Fortunately everything a mere mortal would ever have to worry about regular expressions is explained quite explicitly in the first 50 pages. Buy the book, read the first 50 pages, learn a lot, and impress your colleagues who browse through the rest of the book...unless you actually are a programming language programmer.


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  August 21 1999
Submitted by Dave Hummel   [Respond | View]



Tripled my knowledge of regular expressions in just a few pages, and I haven't even finished the whole book. Don't bother trying to learn perl without this book unless you are already a regex Guru!


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  December 29 1998
Submitted by Grant Hopwood   [Respond | View]



I found this book fantastic. It opened my eyes to the 'real world' of regular expressions, that I never knew before.

This book gave me all the knowledge I needed about how the perl regex engine performs its pattern matching. How to write accurate and effective regexes.

I often manipulate text files hundreds of megabytes in size, and this book was a great lesson in how I could optimize the regexes I was using. Even so much as tripling their processing speeds!

Thanks Jeff!


Mastering Regular Expressions Review,  August 29 1998
Submitted by Julian Olson   [Respond | View]



The book is a spectacular achievement. I ordered it after
reading the TPJ { The Perl Journal } article. I have used
AWK (Thompson Automation compiler) a lot, only recently
discovered PERL, and now feel extremely lucky to have my
eyes opened further by what you have written. You have
struck exactly the right level, and the writing is a
beautiful reflection of clear thinking.

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