Rating:  - Good Information
Many people only barely utilize regular experssions, having been unable to get more than basic expressions to work. There are a lot of reasons for this - shell escapes, man pages that are terse to the point of being cryptic, etc. This book is a clear and very readable trip through practical regular expression creation and application that will enable the reader to get the most out of grep, awk, perl and other programs that use regular expressions.
Rating:  - The ultimate book for the ultimate demands - For an introduction just too heavy weight
Jeffrey Friedl describes regular expressions at an amazing depth and precision. Regular expressions are not easy and the quirks of the different tools (including their exact version and for what operating system) make writing them to an irritating black art. A black art to almost anybody. MRE sorts everything out in a comprehensible fashion. The price the reader has to pay: a very dense book, a need to follow the details until your head starts swimming and a lot of strain on the memory about what works, how and where.
MRE is somewhat easier to comprehend for a reader with a strong Pearl background. Also a good prior understanding to regular expressions is a true asset here. If you have neither, you do not need to despair. Jeffrey Friedl explains everything thoroughly from the ground up.
The writing style is very pedagogical. Important things get repeated quite often. Still this book is very dense. The flow is dry: no rhythm, special sense of humor or wit sweetens your wading through the material. Nevertheless Jeffrey Friedl kept my interest through the pages though the reading felt like hard work.
I do recommend this book to the truly dedicated reader.
Rating: - Fantastic resource, don't go without it
This is must-have if you are trying to learn regexps or improve your knowledge of them. It carefully walks you through how to construct expressions, covering everything from the most basic tasks to complicated scenarios. It explains how matching works, so you can really understand what is going on behind the scenes.
Rating: - What everyone else said...
What more can I say besides what everyone else has said.
This is a WONDERFUL and POWERFUL book on Regular Expressions.
From just-beyond-beginner to advanced, this book provides a fantastic view into the world of Regular Expressions and the practical thinking involved with them. However, without at least a semi-understanding of the concepts you will not be able to get through the book very quickly.
I walked away with MUCH more knowledge than I had expected to. This applies to not only regular expressions, but also to rational thinking/planning when it comes to data and programmatic analysis.
Rating: - Great Book!
This is a great book for learning about regular expressions. It goes into much detail, yet still remains an easy read for a novice who has not had much experience to RegEx. Recommended.
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