RegEx is supported in all major development environments (for use in editing and working with code) and will thus appeal to anyone using these tools. In addition, every JavaScript developer should be using RegEx, but most don't as it has never been taught to them properly before. Developers using ASP, C#, ColdFusion, Java JSP, PHP, Perl, Python, and more can (and should) be using RegEx, and so every one of them is a potential reader too. The reader of this book will learn how to:

• Match characters sets

• Match repeating characters (using minimums and maximums if needed)

• Match (or ignore) based on case

• Build sub-expressions

• Use all of the special characters

• Work with excape sequences

• Use POSIX classes to simplify complex expressions

• Use back-references

• Use look-behind operators

Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes is a tutorial book organized into a series of easy-to-follow 10-minute lessons. These well targeted lessons teach you in 10 minutes what other books might take hundreds of pages to cover. Instead of dwelling on syntax, terminology, and arcane examples and scenarios, this book takes a very hands-on approach to solving the needs of the majority of RegEx users who simply need to manipulate data.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 27 Ratings

Don't buy the Kindle vesion - 2009-06-26
Reviewer Rating:
I purchased this based upon the reviews that were very good, but if you are looking to buy this for the Kindle, don't!. The examples are listed in such a way that you can't read them on the Kindle. The regular expression matches are listed by showing the matches with a light gray behind the match. You can't see it at all on the Kindle. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't making sense to me, so I got my hands on a printed version and saw what I was missing was the whole key to the book.

Too Little Information - 2009-08-12
Reviewer Rating:
Way too little information to actually implement the code in any application. Lacks examples of the use regex in any major programming language.

Excellent book for Regex Novices - 2009-07-30
Reviewer Rating:
It seems that every time I needed to use Regex for one reason or another I'd always have to scour the web for canned formulas that matched the task at hand. I would usually find what I needed but I wasted a lot of time going through the discovery process over and over. What's worse is that once I had found that magic formula I really didn't know how it did what it did. As a developer this is unsettling to me because I feel I really should know what all my code is doing. My last project forced me to face up to the fact that I really needed to gain mastery of Regex; but which book should I chose? I took a gamble on "Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes" because it wasn't daunting to me. Can you learn Regular Expressions in 10 minutes? Well yes, you can. Will you be a Zen-Master in using them? Probably not.

The most valuable benefit that this book provided me was the way that Ben laid out each short lesson (and I do mean short). Mr. Forta wisely builds from the very basics and then explains step-by-step, what the expression means. The shortness of the lesson helps me concentrate on one thing a time and grasp it. Then wisely, the author introduces you to the next lesson which builds upon the previous lesson. The "old stuff" you learned one or two chapters ago never gets stale because it becomes part of the whole. I really like this approach and wish that more authors would use it. In addition, Mr. Forta also asks questions like "that worked, but can we make it better?" This was a fun tactic that challenged me to put my new-found knowledge to the test. Great idea!

I managed to get through this book in a few days, taking on three or four lessons at a time. In the end, I was emboldened to tackle more complex expression studies. The good news is, I am no longer intimidated when I see any expression. Because of this book, I am able to look at an expression and pick apart groups within an expression and gradually zoom out to get a larger focus of how it's supposed to work. Not bad for a simple little book that didn't cost over fifty bucks! To anyone who is interested in diving into Regex I would highly recommend this book. It wasn't intended to make you a wizard of complex expressions, but it certainly provides a solid foundation to code at that level if that's what you want. Thanks to the author and Sams for making this book available.

Excellent! - 2009-03-12
Reviewer Rating:
Nothing to say except that this book is hardly recommanded to progress in overcoming this magical tool. Bravo Ben Forta!

Excellent introduction to Regular Expressions - 2008-05-26
Reviewer Rating:
Regular Expressions are incredibly powerful text parsing tools. But as with almost everything, using the tools regularly is essential to maintaining and building proficiency. Of course, there are ways to work around that and this is one of them.

Not only is the book an extremely good introduction to Regular Expressions and the Regular Expressions Language, but it is also very helpful as a very quick refresher course.

Forta intends his book to be an introduction to Regular Expressions. In fact - and this shows you the nature of the man - Forta suggests another book from another publisher (Friedl's "Mastering Regular Expressions) to those who want more information.

In ten chapters, Forta walks the reader through the basics of understanding what Regular Expressions are, how they can be used and how to use them.

Overall, this is a great introduction to Regular Expressions, their user and how to forumulate them. Excellent for your first introduction or for refreshing the skills of the infrequent user.

Jerry

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