O'Reilly Network: Unix Text Processing

Published on O'Reilly (http://www.oreilly.com/)
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/frank/unixtext_0301.html
See this if you're having trouble printing code examples

Date: March 2001
From: Joe Mc Cool
To: Frankly Speaking
Subject: Unix Text Processing

Might there be a market for a book on groff/troff/nroff and Unix text processing in general? As far as I can see, many of the classical works on this subject are out of print and it is really difficult to get good texts.

Congratulations on a great series of books. I have many on my shelves and have a special interest in them as I review technical books for the C Users Group here in the U.K.

Joe

Dear Mr. Mc Cool:

The book you want was published; and although we didn't publish it, O'Reilly & Associates owns the copyright. But alas! It is not in print and has not been in print for some time.

The title of the book is Unix Text Processing. It was published in 1987 by Hayden Books. Our own Tim O'Reilly, about whom nothing more needs to be said, and our own Dale Dougherty, president of the O'Reilly Network, were the authors.

When this book was written, O'Reilly & Associates was a small team of crack technical writers and consultants. We published this book with Hayden because we didn't have a publishing arm at that time. (Hayden wanted visibility as experts with these Unix tools as a way of promoting its consulting business. Many O'Reilly authors have the same sort of goal when they propose a book to us.)

This is a wonderful book, and I ain't just sayin' that because the author is my boss. No, sir. It has chapters or sections on vi, nroff, and troff (it predated groff, I think), eqn, pic, sed, awk, tbl, ms, and mm (and macro packages in general), and even make. It is over 650 pages long and costs only $26.95 (admittedly, that's in 1987 dollars). It has a crummy index, however, even though it has a 14-page section on indexing.

Hayden took this book out of print many years ago. (I still have a copy, which I leave open on my desk when Tim or Dale is in Cambridge.) One of the chapters later became Learning the vi Editor, a book O'Reilly published and continues to offer today. The Hayden book is also available on Amazon's used book service. (Hurry up and order!)

I don't think O'Reilly is likely to bring out a new book about these systems. We're more excited about XML and more advanced forms of text processing. But those tools still work, and if you're looking for a book, Unix Text Processing is your salvation.

Frank Willison
Editor-in-Chief
O'Reilly & Associates

Return to: Frankly Speaking