The Open Source Zone

You know those times when you know what you want to do, but are not sure of the correct form, this is the book to grab. It has been my book to grab as a reference rather than trying to find the right language book. This is not the book to learn the language from, however. You will find your copy will be well worn if you do lots of coding.

Pocket references are not meant to teach you anything from the beginning, but to be everyday references in known and new environments. In other words, if you don't know regular expressions, then go to "Mastering Regular Expressions". If you're still here, then you'll get a cheat sheet on steroids for languages ranging from bug-prone JavaScript to the King and Queen of robustness, Perl and Python. Although everything claims to be PCRE these days, particular examples in every language available is a plus for anyone. A must for any type of user input validation.

From the back cover of the Regular Expression Pocket Reference: "Ideal as a quick reference..." and "... makes an ideal on-the-job companion." All this is true if you are well-versed in regular expressions and use multiple programming languages (and confuse the syntax).

I like the use of the same examples across programming languages (where applicable).

The recipes in the cookbook section are great, although I would have liked to see additional recipes (like stripping HTML tags, matching credit card numbers etc...). Of course the examples are endless and over time one builds his/her own recipe collection. At least this is a good place to start.

"Regular Expression - Pocket Reference" is just as high in quality as it's big brother ("Mastering Regular Expressions.")

The book begins with a very brief review of regular expression concepts and patterns. For each language/tool, the book includes tables to reference the metacharacters, a reference for the API/syntax/library and four examples. A few of the languages have additional examples tailored specifically to that language.

The languages/tools included are: Perl, Java, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, PCRE, Apache Web Server, vi and awk/sed/egrep. If you use a number of these, the book is a concise reference. If you only use one, you would be better served by printing out the relevant reference charts from the website of your language of choice.

If you are learning about regular expressions or only going to buy one regular expressions book, I recommend the "Mastering Regular Expressions." If you are knowledgeable about regular expressions and just need a review or reference, this book does the job nicely.

This book is the best reference for regular expressions. The second edition came out in July 2007 and has several updates over the previous version. The reason for the books ease-of-use lies in the organization. The chapters represent one language each. For each language, listings of the meta-characters and examples are shown. Depending on the language being displayed, there are other subjects covered such as unicode support, object orientation, and different topics unique to the language. The primary parsing engine is listed at the beggining of the chapters with the examples arranged at the ends of the chapters. I generally need to look up expression for JavaScript and [...]. Both of these are covered plus perl, java, php, python, ruby, pcre, apache, vi and shells. I just bookmark the 2 areas I need and I can lookup the expression listing in a few seconds.