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Summary: Useful book
Review: This book offered much additional information (e.g. history) about regular expressions, and will certainly be used further for reference purposes. First reading the book 'Learning Perl' from Randal Schwarz (O'Reilly) gave a headstart in understanding further the regular expression examples of e.g. Perl.
Rating: 
Summary: Need to get to speed quickly? This is a good start...
Review: While the various websites give a lot of good information on regular expressions, they don't show enough about building them from scratch. This book does a great job of laying a good foundation and then helping the reader understand how to build expressions from there.
Rating:
Summary: Great book to learn about Regular Expressions.
Review: If you want to learn the ins and outs of how a regular expression really works, this book does a great job explaining all the syntax, intricacies, optimization, greedy match, and non-greedy match. I highly recommended for those who writes a lot of regular expression.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't call me a reference book
Review: I found other books much more helpful on solving a sticky regular expression problem. The author himself sums up his attitude towards users who want to find the solution fast without reading his 'story'
"Readers familiar with regular expressions might feel that they can immediately begin using this book as a detailed reference, flipping directly to the section on their favorite utility. I would like to discourage that."So, for anyone with a problem and you think your are going to flip to a section and solve it, sorry, the author says he discourages that and you must read his story first. "To get the most out of this book, read it as a story first". I would rather have an experienced expert focus on creating a book to solve problems, not show me how smart he is. And reference books should be writen as reference books and leave the stories to Tom Clancy.
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Summary: Comprehensive Guide to Regular Expressions
Review: Most computer programmers have heard of regular expressions, discussed in hushed tones and conjuring images of Unix gurus and their incomprehensible commands and godlike mastery of their systems, yet few actually know enough about regular expressions or how they work to do more than a simple word match using one, if that. This book covers regular expressions from top to bottom in great and exhaustive detail, including the hows and whys of performance and supported features between the different engines that process them. Though geared mainly toward Perl, the examples and text will apply to nearly any system that provides support, from PHP to ASP to Python. The text is fairly dense and is not exactly geared toward the novice programmer, though. I've had classes in Finite State Machines and still had to really apply my grey matter in a few spots to understand everything being discussed. However, the understanding the reader gains upon completion of the text is invaluable and will expand one's programming potential exponentially. The one real lack of the book is a good overview and quick-reference card, but on the whole, the book is a good selection from the O'Reilly library and well worth the read of any serious programmer.
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Summary: Friedl once again wrote the ultimate book on the subject
Review: Regular Expressions are a powerful tool, but not a topic that easily lend itself to a light reading. Notwithstanding the author's very informal writing style and genuine enthusiasm, a few sections can be dry or even cryptic (especially for beginners). Anyway, Friedl once again wrote the ultimate book on the subject, with an intimate knowledge of Regular Expressions, an outstanding attention to every detail and a huge amount of useful and relevant examples. Compared to the previous edition it covers new features but also expand on a broader range of programming languages, with dedicated chapters for Perl, Java and .NET; PHP, Phyton and Ruby get some coverage as well
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Summary: Inspirational, but...
Review: A good book, but it doesn't really end up offering that much. If you are good with regular expressions and understand them, this just gives a lot of more detailed, specific and complex one's. That's not a bad thing, but it's not really something you'd have any reason to use and could be done just as accurately and efficiently with a lot less code. Some of them look impressive, but are just a lot of unneeded code for the sake of looking inpressive. A lot can be had from this book, I just already know regular expressions very well, but it's still inspiring.
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Summary: The definitive guide to regular expressions
Review: Regular Expressions ("regexes" for short), have been officially integrated into Java with the release of J2SE 1.4. While many Java developers are just discovering them, they have been a fixture in other languages and tools for quite some time. Regular expressions are powerful tools for performing all kinds of text processing, but they require no small amount of knowledge to use effectively and efficiently. This is where "Mastering Regular Expressions" comes to the rescue. The book's nine chapters are categorized into three sections. The book first teaches the basics of regular expressions, crafting simple regexes, and the different features and flavors available in various regex packages. Next, the reader is given invaluable information about how the different types of regular expression engines work, as well as techniques for crafting practical and efficient expressions. The final section covers language specific issues in Perl, Java, and .NET. 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. The author offers up questions along the way designed to engage the reader to apply what he has learned. In-line references to other parts of the book containing information pertinent the particular topic being discussed are also very helpful. 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.
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Summary: HIGHLY INFORMATIVE
Review: At roughly 500 pages, this book can hardly be described as voluminous. Yet; the details it apportioned to each of its chapters is great. It comprehensively dissected all those qualities that made Regular Expressions so important.
In fact, any computer language beginner who wants to learn about Perl, Java, or any of those languages that use the .NET Framework should, (first of all), consider building a solid Regular Expressions foundation with this book. It is highly informative: especially if you are inclined to Perl.
Proper use of this book ensures that one does not get confused, as regards the many options that Regular Expressions provide for any given problem. It has a great value!
Rating:
Summary: So good, I bought it twice!
Review: In spite of the vow that Friedl would not put himself (and his family) through the rigors of writing a followup to his first edition, I sure am glad he made the decision to write a second edition. Over 5 years ago, I got the first such book and found it to be a humbling experience -- realizing just how little I *really* knew about regular expressions (in spite of thinking my skills were quite advanced in that area). Now, years later and as an instructor of UNIX at North Lake College in Irving, Texas, I highly recommend this book to even our first year students. Friedl's clear explanation of this topic and the manner in which he presents the material makes it comprehensible to even those that have never had experience with regex's before. Like Perl's Larry Wall, Jeffrey Friedl has a strong background in natural languages. That contributes not only to bhis lucid writing style but also helps in terms of understanding regex's as a "little language". This 2nd edition is particularly welcome because of its extensive coverage of regular expressions in the context of Java. That ons aspect alone is sufficient to get the updated second edition (to say nothing of the enhancements in Perl since the first edition of the book).
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