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Summary: Great Book for learning Regular Expressions
Review: Great book for learning Regular expressions, the only one I think. Even great for using it in VB with things like RegularX (activeX control for Visual Basic Regular Expressions, etc). I liked it to learn how to manipulate text.
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Summary: This book is for programmers with insomnia!
Review: Wow. After reading O'Reilly's first book on the Perl language in general, this book was the real eye opener to realizing that Perl was truly a powerful language. The examples provided in this book are real world examples you can take and use or modify within your own code. If you look above, I rated this book at five stars; but then you might wonder why I said this book was for insomniacs?! Everytime I try and sit down to read a few chapters I end up feeling sleepy and nodding off! One of the most noticeable chapters in the book is the discussion on DFA versus NFA implementations of various regular expression parsers: Perl, Python, Tcl, POSIX, grep, emacs... If you want to truly optimize your code, this is the chapter to read to analyze all your "hot spots." Later chapters deal with even more real world applications, such as IP addresses and WWW pages. Don't let those big nasty regular expressions scare you though. Pretty soon you'll be able to read and understand powerful expressions that will let you manipulate any kind of text you come across.
Rating:
Summary: excellent for learning and reference -- indispensible.
Review: This is #1 on the list of books I wish I'd had from the first day I began programming. It's everything you'll ever need or want to know about REs, and then some -- and very intelligibly written, too.
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Summary: Learning Perl? Buy this first!
Review: I made the mistake of buying a bunch of books on Perl to try to learn Perl programming. I made progress, but it was slow -- and it beat me down. Then I bought THIS book. Perl's implementation of Regular Expressions is a great deal of the functionality of that language. This is true to the extent that trying to read Perl script without knowing Regular Expressions is tedious at best. This is not just another computer book. Jeffrey Friedl has put his heart and soul into this work, and it shows. He even offers free updates (in the truest, most honest sense of the word) from his own web page. This is the best programming book I own. After reading this book, Perl script reads like USA Today! Save yourself lots of heartache. Buy this book, Mastering Regular Expressions -- read it -- THEN learn Perl!
Jeff Morris
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Summary: Bravo!
Review: When last did you pick up a book on a dry, technical subject, and have it turn out to be a real page-turner? Thoroughly informative, accurate, insightful, and (beleive it or not) entertaining! This is an author who knows his stuff inside out, and has an absolute mastery of the art of communication. Undoubtedly, by far, the best technical book I've ever read. What's Mr Friedl writing next?
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Summary: A shame that it was only printed on paper...
Review: ...because even the hearty bond used by O'Reilly is already dog-eared and in danger of wearing out after 5 months of use! My prior review, in retrospect, was not nearly as enthuiastic as it should have been. Even after several cover-to-cover readings, you'll still find this as a must-have reference. Prepare to use your yellow highlighter a lot to mark the gems you'll find yourself using.
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Summary: this book saved my client $10,000 in a week
Review: I had to convert a client's db-backed Web server from the Illustra Web Blade (where it was deadlocking) into the safe fast land of AOLserver Tcl. This involved writing a Perl program to parse the Web Blade syntax and then generate Tcl with the appropriate AOLserver API calls. I didn't have the BNF for the Web Blade language and didn't particularly feel like figuring it out. Reading _Mastering Regular Expressions_ enabled me to hack this out pretty painlessly in Perl in a day or two. Probably saved the client $10,000 in programmer time. Jeffrey Friedl would say that you're supposed to read it from cover-to-cover but I think that you can benefit by pulling it out in emergencies. Anyway, I had to pick four O'Reilly titles to give away every month from and this book was the first that came to my mind. Why doesn't this book get a 10? Because in a world with _Anna Karenina_, I don't think any computer trade book deserves a 10! END
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Summary: Looking forward to another book by Jeffrey!
Review: I was struck by the language analogy that he gave in the introduction. It was then, that I knew, that I would end up buying this book and put an end to this reg. expr. mystery once and for all! O'Reilly has the reputation of publishing very technical, to-the-point books and authors like Jeffrey make it come true. I am really looking forward to another book on some other arcane topic by him
Rating:
Summary: First time ever unable to put down a book on ... programming
Review: Friedl's book is a masterpiece on all levels - he makes a dry subject fascinating and exciting, coaxes and encourages you through the tough parts without nannying you, repeatedly emphasises important points without boring you, scatters tempting glimpses into later topics and crafts a book which is a delight to read.
In his preface, Friedl advises readers to avoid the temptation to leap to the chapter on their favourite tool, and instead read the book first as a story. The flow of his writing makes it hard to read it any other way. The only distraction is the desire to constantly check your code against that in the book (a desire which usually leads you to completely rewrite your inefficient code).
I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone who wants to make their life easier. Must go now, as I still have 5 pages left before I get to the end
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Summary: And you *thought* you were a regular expression guru, eh?
Review: Prepare to be humbled! Jeffrey Friedl will show you just how little you knew about regex's...even when you thought you knew it all. What may initially appear to be a dry subject becomes absolutely fascinating with his sometimes humorous (but always accurate) writing style. Learn the dangers of: ``([^"\\)+)*'' and more! Beyond the topic of regular expressions, this book engages the reader in the general processes of thinking and analysis
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