Rating: 
Summary: PHP User says "thumbs-up"
Review: Although not written exclusively for PHP users, I bought this book for use with PHP. Sometimes the Perl-skewed text can be a little overbearing, but I think that will be useful in the future.Anyone who's into GNU type programming will benefit greatly from this book. Get it, use it... build better programs.
Rating:
Summary: Accelerated Learning!
Review: Within two weeks after receiving Mr. Friedl's book, I was able to write a concise Perl regex (see below) to find arbitrarily complex bible citations (e.g., Is 1:4,27:6-10,65:1-66:1,5-15) in my bible study files. I'm not a programmer by trade or hobby, have no Perl background or any appreciable experience with regexes thru grep or similar tools (my background in data modeling using EBNF helped me grasp the regex concept). Mr. Friedl's orderly and thorough progression from simple to complex material allowed me to easily tailor my reading and "practicum" towards a specific problem, while learning a great deal about regexes (and Perl as well, although this is not a Perl book). Mr. Friedl's humor helped keep my interest, although that's purely a matter of taste. I strongly recommend this book if you're looking to go from 0-60 mph on regexes, both conceptually and practically, within a couple of weeks. If you're looking for "recipes," you'll be disappointed. /$bk\s*($ver_rng+|$ch_rng+)+/g
Rating: 
Summary: Will help you make sense of a daunting subject.
Review: This is a book about Regular Expressions 'for Perl and Other Tools' but really it's a book about Perl. Other tools are covered, but coverage is a bit woolly, so if you are reading it to get the low-down on Python's RegEx capabilities etc. this book won't get you far. I can't help that feel that if the book had just concentrated on Perl, rather than giving sketchy coverage of 'Other Tools', it could have been even better (and would have definitely got five starts). That said, the extra coverage (particularly the RegEx engine material) was very interesting and has turned out invaluable in practice. If you are an absolute beginner to Perl or programming you will need another book(s) to get the most out of this one, but it is a gentle and thorough introduction that won't leave you scratching your head, which is a feat in itself considering the complexity of Regular Expressions. This is an excellent book for getting the most out of Perl's RegEx capabilities, you will close the back cover feeling that you genuinely have Mastered the subject. It is without doubt the best book available on the subject, nicely written, with a friendly and un-patronising tone (grammatical errors aside), you can't really go wrong with this one. There could have been some more useful real world examples/projects included, and the book could probably do with an overhaul (it was published in 97) to accommodate Perl 5.6 and other developments (O'Reilly are you listening?), but it is still the best out there. If RegEx is a subject you need to get to grips with, this book is the solution.
Rating:
Summary: Useful, enlightening, perhaps even entertaining
Review: In my opinion, one of the two best books from O'Reilly during the 1990s (the other being the original 1991 "purple camel book"). Friedl applies his perfectionist and completist nature fully to the task. He did his own layout, which is not that unusual in the technical publishing trade, but which definitely isn't the O'Reilly way. The book is better for it (probably much better) and for all the other places where his attention to detail and thoroughness takes command. This book is not a good end to end read, but it goes very well if you read some of the beginning material and then read a page or three from time to time as you get a chance. I sometimes (only half jokingly) suggest to my students that they should replace their copy of Reader's Digest near their "thrones" with a copy of MRE. Then they can read about a new topic for 10 or 15 minutes and ponder it for the rest of the day, which, if you are new to the theory and reality of regular expressions, is about the perfect regimen.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent read for the beginning programmer
Review: There's just a world of power at any user's fingertips, and it's regular expressions. For any task that involves anything with alphanumeric characters, there are few, if any, ways to manage large chunks of them more effectively. Regular expressions harnessed to Perl are the tools that you need to do essentially anything on your computer. This book is like a scuba diving lesson for any reasonably competent computer user: it will take you to fascinating places you haven't been, it will make you think and be a little uncomfortable at first, but it will incredibly exhilarating when you're actually doing it.
Rating:
Summary: Understand Regexes
Review: As somone else said, "If you're looking for a handy desktop reference this book is NOT it." But it doesn't claim to be. The title is "Mastering Regular Expressions" and that's what the book is for. If you want a quick reference so you can just find a regex to do what you want, then you're not interested in mastering regular expressions, are you? This book is for someone who wants an in-depth understanding of regexes - not someone with a looming deadline. This book is in the category of "Teach a man to fish, and you've fed him for a lifetime."
Rating:
Summary: Serious regular expression magic for the hard-core hacker
Review: This book was written with a thoroughness that is only possible when the author loves his subject. As a long-time UNIX hacker, I thought I knew regular expressions. I mainly bought the book to gain a fuller understanding of the intricacies of Perl regular expressions. I learned that, when it came to REs, I was a rank amateur. Jeffrey Friedl is the master. The Perl chapter alone is worth the price of the book....
Rating: 
Summary: not enough examples
Review: A good general book on Reg Ex, but the basic problem is that its too broad. Since so many regular expression engines can be different it doesnt really spend enough time on any one to let you 'master' them. But its still a worthwhile read, and its a good companion for Programming Perl for the perl programmers.
Rating: 
Summary: Appallingly chatty and unprofessional style.
Review: The author's unamusing cuteness is a constant distraction. In the single brief section explaining NFA vs. DFA regex engines, for example, we are treated to: "We (humans with advanced neural nets between our ears) can see that if we're matching 'tonight,' the third alternative is the one .... Despite their brainy origins, a regex-directed engine can't come to that conclusion ...." "What this really means may seem vague now, but it will all be spelled out just after the mysteries of life are revealed (in just two pages)." "(You know, if I could find a way to include 'It's not over until the fat lady sings," in this paragraph, I would.)" With phrases like this throughout the text (and even in the table of contents -- e.g. one section is entitled, "A Really Crummy Analogy"), one wonders how O'Reilly editors could possibly have OK'ed this immaturity. The few uses I made of the index suggest many omissions and errors. "\A" for example cites only page 236 (Dec. 1998 printing), although no hint is offered there of its definition. "\c", for another example, is nowhere to be found. (It is incompletely explained in the text at p. 241.) The index also reflects indifference to the reader's time and productivity. A high proportion of entries force a second lookup ("see ...") by not providing any page numbers themselves. I found the discussion of subtleties involving matching with the "\G" Multi-Match Anchor clever and informative. The author probably knows his stuff and has things to say. Much of the guilt for the book's overwhelming defects can be laid at the door of the editors at O'Reilly.
Rating: 
Summary: Never has so much been made of so little
Review: If you're looking for a handy desktop reference this book is NOT it. When faced with a short-fused development schedule and needing to get up to speed with regexps rather quickly I found the book to be difficult to navigate, inconcise, and the overuse of bold, italics, and foreign (Japanese?) characters and other oddities very annoying. I thought the book went way beyond regular expressions and therefore found it of little use as a reference guide. It is better suited as a tutorial for someone that has a lot of time on his/her hands. A much better reference, also from O'Reilly, can be found in "JavaScript - The Definitive Reference", by Danny Goodman.
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