Mastering Regular Expressions: Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools (Nutshell Handbooks) - Softcover

Friedl, Jeffrey E.F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565922573 ISBN 13: 9781565922570

Publisher: O'Reilly, 1997

Synopsis

Regular expressions are a powerful tool for manipulating text and data. This book, with its unprecedented detail and breadth of coverage, will help you discover a whole new world of mastery over your computer and its data. Regular expressions are not a tool in and of themselves, but are included as part of a larger utility. The classic example is grep. 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++); and specialized tools (including lex, Expect, and sed). In this eye-opening book, author Jeffrey Friedl leads you through the steps of crafting a regular expression that gets the job done. He examines a variety of tools and uses them in an extensive array of examples, with a major focus on Perl.

About this title

Review

Regular expressions are a central element of UNIX utilities like egrep and programming languages such as Perl. But whether you're a UNIX user or not, you can benefit from a better understanding of regular expressions since they work with applications ranging from validating data-entry fields to manipulating information in multimegabyte text files. Mastering Regular Expressions quickly covers the basics of regular-expression syntax, then delves into the mechanics of expression-processing, common pitfalls, performance issues, and implementation-specific differences. Written in an engaging style and sprinkled with solutions to complex real-world problems, Mastering Regular Expressions offers a wealth information that you can put to immediate use.

About the Author

Jeffrey Friedl was raised in the countryside of Rootstown, Ohio, and had aspirations of being an astronomer until one day he noticed a TRS-80 Model I sitting unused in the corner of the chem lab (bristling with a full 16K of RAM, no less). He eventually began using Unix (and regular expressions) in 1980, and earned degrees in Computer Science from Kent (BS) and the University of New Hampshire (MS). He did kernel development for Omron Corporation in Kyoto, Japan for eight years before moving in 1997 to Silicon Valley to apply his regular-expression know-how to financial news and data for a little-known company called "Yahoo!"

When faced with the daunting task of filling his copious free time, Jeffrey enjoys playing Ultimate Frisbee and basketball with friends at Yahoo!, programming his house, and feeding the squirrels and jays in his back yard. He also enjoys spending time with his wife Fumie, and preparing for the Fall 2002 release of their first "software project" together.

Edition details

• Publisher: O'Reilly
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1565922573
• ISBN 13: 9781565922570
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342