Mastering Regular Expressions | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeffrey Friedl
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $44.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  124 reviews
Sales Rank: 9778
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 542
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0596528124
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.72
EAN: 9780596528126
ASIN: 0596528124
Publication Date: August 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: All orders ship same business day via standard shipping (USPS Media Mail) if received by 1 PM CST.
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Amazon.com 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.
Product Description
Regular expressions are an extremely powerful tool for manipulating text and data. They are now standard features in a wide range of languages and popular tools, including Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, VB.NET and C# (and any language using the .NET Framework), PHP, and MySQL. If you don't use regular expressions 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. As this book shows, a command of regular expressions is an invaluable skill. Regular expressions allow you to code complex and subtle text processing that you never imagined could be automated. Regular expressions can save you time and aggravation. They can be used to craft elegant solutions to a wide range of problems. Once you've mastered regular expressions, they'll become an invaluable part of your toolkit. You will wonder how you ever got by without them. Yet despite their wide availability, flexibility, and unparalleled power, regular expressions are frequently underutilized. Yet what is power in the hands of an expert can be fraught with peril for the unwary. Mastering Regular Expressions will help you navigate the minefield to becoming an expert and help you optimize your use of regular expressions. Mastering Regular Expressions, Third Edition, now includes a full chapter devoted to PHP and its powerful and expressive suite of regular expression functions, in addition to enhanced PHP coverage in the central "core" chapters. Furthermore, this edition has been updated throughout to reflect advances in other languages, including expanded in-depth coverage of Sun's java.util.regex package, which has emerged as the standard Java regex implementation.Topics include: - A comparison of features among different versions of many languages and tools
- How the regular expression engine works
- Optimization (major savings available here!)
- Matching just what you want, but not what you don't want
- Sections and chapters on individual languages
Written in the lucid, entertaining tone that makes a complex, dry topic become crystal-clear to programmers, and sprinkled with solutions to complex real-world problems, Mastering Regular Expressions, Third Edition offers a wealth information that you can put to immediate use. Reviews of this new edition and the second edition:
"There isn't a better (or more useful) book available on regular expressions."
--Zak Greant, Managing Director, eZ Systems "A real tour-de-force of a book which not only covers the mechanics of regexes in extraordinary detail but also talks about efficiency and the use of regexes in Perl, Java, and .NET...If you use regular expressions as part of your professional work (even if you already have a good book on whatever language you're programming in) I would strongly recommend this book to you."
--Dr. Chris Brown, Linux Format "The author does an outstanding job leading the reader from regex novice to master. The book is extremely easy to read and chock full of useful and relevant examples...Regular expressions are valuable tools that every developer should have in their toolbox. Mastering Regular Expressions is the definitive guide to the subject, and an outstanding resource that belongs on every programmer's bookshelf. Ten out of Ten Horseshoes."
--Jason Menard, Java Ranch
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| Customer Reviews: Read 119 more reviews...
 Great book, but little Ruby September 7, 2008
This book is great if you want to learn about what you can do with regex, how they work, how you can improve them (efficiency & accuracy) and what kind of pitfalls there are.
My only gripe is about the Ruby reference on the cover. In the top right corner it says: "For Perl, PHP, Java, .NET, Ruby and more!" Perl, Java, .NET and PHP each get their own chapters (together 200 pages). Ruby, however, only participates in feature comparisons and benchmarks. If I had checked the ToC I would've known this, so I won't hold it against the book that much.
The Ruby thing is a bummer, but since the book is great, it will get all five stars.
 Overall good book with some quirks June 19, 2008
The book is robust and goes into alot detail. I liked the comparing and contrasting between the various RegEx implementations. I had a difficult time digesting some of the detail. In particular, the analogies confused me and I felt the author went overboard with them. Many times, I had to backtrack to understand what was being discussed. However, regular expressions is a complex topic and the author did a good job easing into the concepts. An additional plus was with inline page citation - this helped to find the page corresponding to the topic being discussed.
I would have liked shorter chapters with chapter summaries and more diagrams in place of analogies. Ultimately, Mastering Regular Expressions is a good book referencing a complex topic.
Best material I have seen on regular expressions June 1, 2008
I went through several books and online tutorials and never found anything that did a good comprehensive job of explaining regular expressions. This book does. If you are having trouble "getting it", I highly encourage reading this book. You will be extremely enlightened even after the first few chapters.
 Very in-depth May 23, 2008
Quite a comprehensive guide to regular expressions. Gets very detailed in the areas that it covers. However, definitely not a 'beginner's guide'. I highly recommend that you are already comfortable with the basis of regular expressions before picking up this book. You will get way more out of it if this is not your first introduction to it. Comfort and proficiency with Perl would also be a big help. Title is correct though, this is a guide to 'mastering' regular expressions, not learning them from the beginning.
Will take you a long way down the rabbit hole February 15, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
How deep down the rabbit hole do you really NEED to go? I had a serious need to get on top of regular expressions to solve one particular problem. I looked at several online tutorials which didn't take me where I needed to go, so I ordered Mastering Regular Expressions after reading the Amazon reviews. I always look at the negative reviews first. In spite of the negative reviews I ordered the book with an open mind.
When the book arrived I began reading it with enthusiasm. In the preface there is a small section on "How to Read This Book". I bought into the author's suggestion to read the book's first six chapters first. I was captivated through the first three chapters, and then somewhere in chapter 4 I began to get very weary with information overload. After putting the book down for a couple of days I decided to skip the rest and use what I needed to write the one regular expression I had need of. The book did successfully help me accomplish this, so I gave it 3 stars. Not only did it give me the information I needed that the online tutorials didn't, it also gave me the confidence I needed. For that, which I am grateful, I would have liked to have given it more stars. I think many of those in need of learning about regular expression could be well served by a "lite-edition" of this book. Perhaps someday when I have the time and the need I may try to wade through the rest of the book, but as it is now Mastering Regular Expressions took me far farther down the rabbit hole than I really needed or wanted to go.
If you need to get on top of Regular Expressions, I would recommend this book, however just be ready to be taken far deeper than the average coder probably needs to go.
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