The Regular-Expression Frame of Mind

As we’ll soon see, complete regular expressions are built up from small building-block units. Each individual building block is quite simple, but since they can be combined in an infinite number of ways, knowing how to combine them to achieve a particular goal takes some experience. So, this chapter provides a quick overview of some regular-expression concepts. It doesn’t go into much depth, but provides a basis for the rest of this book to build on, and sets the stage for important side issues that are best discussed before we delve too deeply into the regular expressions themselves.

While some examples may seem silly (because some are silly), they represent the kind of tasks that you will want to do — you just might not realize it yet. If each point doesn’t seem to make sense, don’t worry too much. Just let the gist of the lessons sink in. That’s the goal of this chapter.