xviii Preface
The five and a half years between the first and second editions of this book saw
the popular rise of the Internet, and, perhaps morethan just coincidentally, a con-
siderable expansion in the world of regular expressions. The regular expressions
of almost every tool and language became morepower ful and expressive. Perl,
Python, Tcl, Java, and Visual Basic all got new regular-expr ession backends. New
languages with regular expression support, like PHP,Ruby, and C#, weredevel-
oped and became popular.During all this time, the basic coreofthe book
—
how
to truly understand regular expressions and how to get the most from them
—
remained as important and relevant as ever.
Yet, the first edition gradually started to show its age. It needed updating to reflect
the new languages and features, as well as the expanding role that regular expres-
sions played in the Internet world. It was published in 2002, a year that saw the
landmark releases of java.util.regex,Micr osoft’s .NET Framework, and Perl 5.8.
They wereall covered fully in the second edition. My one regr et with the second
edition was that it didn’t give moreattention to PHP.Inthe four years since the
second edition was published, PHP has only grown in importance, so it became
imperative to correct that deficiency.
This third edition features enhanced
PHP coverage in the early chapters, plus an all
new, expansive chapter devoted entirely to
PHP regular expressions and how to
wield them effectively. Also new in this edition, the Java chapter has been rewrit-
ten and expanded considerably to reflect new features of Java 1.5 and Java 1.6.
Intended Audience
This book will interest anyone who has an opportunity to use regular expressions.
If you don’t yet understand the power that regular expressions can provide, you
should benefit greatly as a whole new world is opened up to you. This book
should expand your understanding, even if you consider yourself an accomplished
regular-expr ession expert. After the first edition, it wasn’t uncommon for me to
receive an email that started “I thought Iknew regular expressions until I read
Mastering Regular Expressions. Now Ido.”
Pr ogrammers working on text-related tasks, such as web programming, will find
an absolute gold mine of detail, hints, tips, and understanding that can be put to
immediate use. The detail and thoroughness is simply not found anywhereelse.
Regular expressions areanidea
—
one that is implemented in various ways by vari-
ous utilities (many, many morethan arespecifically presented in this book). If you
master the general concept of regular expressions, it’s a short step to mastering a
particular implementation. This book concentrates on that idea, so most of the
knowledge presented heretranscends the utilities and languages used to present
the examples.
2July 2006 02:01
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