Introducing Regular Expressions

Unraveling Regular Expressions, Step-By-Step

By: Michael Fitzgerald

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Paperback | 10 August 2012

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250 Pages

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If you're a programmer new to regular expressions, this easy-to-follow guide is a great place to start. You'll learn the fundamentals step-by-step with the help of numerous examples, discovering first-hand how to match, extract, and transform text by matching specific words, characters, and patterns.

Regular expressions are an essential part of a programmer's toolkit, available in various Unix utlilities as well as programming languages such as Perl, Java, JavaScript, and C#. When you've finished this book, you'll be familiar with the most commonly used syntax in regular expressions, and you'll understand how using them will save you considerable time.

Discover what regular expressions are and how they work
Learn many of the differences between regular expressions used with command-line tools and in various programming languages
Apply simple methods for finding patterns in text, including digits, letters, Unicode characters, and string literals
Learn how to use zero-width assertions and lookarounds
Work with groups, backreferences, character classes, and quantifiers
Use regular expressions to mark up plain text with HTML5

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Computing & I.T.Computer Programming & Software Development Program Concepts & Learning to Program O'Reilly Programming & Scripting Languages Booktopia Publisher Services John Wiley & Sons Publishers UK

Preface	p. vii
What Is a Regular Expression?	p. 1
Getting Started with Regexpal	p. 2
Matching a North American Phone Number	p. 2
Matching Digits with a Character Class	p. 4
Using a Character Shorthand	p. 5
Matching Any Character	p. 5
Capturing Groups and Back References	p. 6
Using Quantifiers	p. 6
Quoting Literals	p. 8
A Sample of Applications	p. 9
What You Learned in Chapter 1	p. 11
Technical Notes	p. 11
Simple Pattern Matching	p. 13
Matching String Literals	p. 15
Matching Digits	p. 15
Matching Non-Digits	p. 17
Matching Word and Non-Word Characters	p. 18
Matching Whitespace	p. 20
Matching Any Character, Once Again	p. 22
Marking Up the Text	p. 24
Using sed to Mark Up Text	p. 24
Using Perl to Mark Up Text	p. 25
What You Learned in Chapter 2	p. 27
Technical Notes	p. 27
Boundaries	p. 29
The Beginning and End of a Line	p. 29
Word and Non-word Boundaries	p. 31
Other Anchors	p. 33
Quoting a Group of Characters as Literals	p. 34
Adding Tags	p. 34
Adding Tags with sed	p. 36
Adding Tags with Perl	p. 37
What You Learned in Chapter 3	p. 38
Technical Notes	p. 38
Alternation, Groups, and Backreferences	p. 41
Alternation	p. 41
Subpatterns	p. 45
Capturing Groups and Backreferences	p. 46
Named Groups	p. 48
Non-Capturing Groups	p. 49
Atomic Groups	p. 50
What You Learned in Chapter 4	p. 50
Technical Notes	p. 51
Character Classes	p. 53
Negated Character Classes	p. 55
Union and Difference	p. 56
POSIX Character Classes	p. 56
What You Learned in Chapter 5	p. 59
Technical Notes	p. 60
Matching Unicode and Other Characters	p. 61
Matching a Unicode Character	p. 62
Using vim	p. 63
Matching Characters with Octal Numbers	p. 64
Matching Unicode Character Properties	p. 65
Matching Control Characters	p. 68
What You Learned in Chapter 6	p. 70
Technical Notes	p. 71
Quantifiers	p. 73
Greedy, Lazy, and Possessive	p. 74
Matching with *, +, and ?	p. 74
Matching a Specific Number of Times	p. 75
Lazy Quantifiers	p. 76
Possessive Quantifiers	p. 77
What You Learned in Chapter 7	p. 78
Technical Notes	p. 79
Lookarounds	p. 81
Positive Lookaheads	p. 81
Negative Lookaheads	p. 84
Positive Lookbehinds	p. 85
Negative Lookbehinds	p. 85
What You Learned in Chapter 8	p. 86
Technical Notes	p. 86
Marking Up a Document with HTML	p. 87
Matching Tags	p. 87
Transforming Plain Text with sed	p. 88
Substitution with sed	p. 89
Handling Roman Numerals with sed	p. 90
Handling a Specific Paragraph with sed	p. 91
Handling the Lines of the Poem with sed	p. 91
Appending Tags	p. 92
Using a Command File with sed	p. 92
Transforming Plain Text with Perl	p. 94
Handling Roman Numerals with Perl	p. 95
Handling a Specific Paragraph with Perl	p. 96
Handling the Lines of the Poem with Perl	p. 96
Using a File of Commands with Perl	p. 97
What You Learned in Chapter 9	p. 98
Technical Notes	p. 98
The End of the Beginning	p. 101
Learning More	p. 102
Notable Tools, Implementations, and Libraries	p. 103
Perl	p. 103
PCRE	p. 103
Ruby (Oniguruma)	p. 104
Python	p. 104
RE2	p. 105
Matching a North American Phone Number	p. 105
Matching an Email Address	p. 105
What You Learned in Chapter 10	p. 106
Appendix: Regular Expression Reference	p. 107
Regular Expression Glossary	p. 123
Index	p. 129
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Introducing Regular Expressions

Unraveling Regular Expressions, Step-By-Step

At a Glance

Paperback

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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