So What's A $#!%%
Regular Expression, Anyway?!
By Vikram Vaswani and Harish Kamath
Melonfire
April 12, 2000
Introduction
Ask any relatively-experienced
*NIX user to list his top ten favorite things about the operating
system, and you're almost certain to hear him mutter, somewhere
between "99% uptime" and "remote system reboots",
the phrase "regular expressions".
Ask any relatively-experienced *NIX user to list the ten things
he hates most about the operating system, and somewhere between
"zombie processes" and "installation", he's
sure to spit out the phrase "regular expressions".
It's precisely this complex love-hate equation that spawned the
idea for a tutorial on regular expressions - surely, went the
reasoning, something that induced such strong emotions in
normally hard-headed *NIX administrators was worthy of
investigation. And so, regardless of whether you're new to
regular expressions, or an old hand at putting them together, the
next few pages should help you resolve your conflicted feelings
on the subject. Hey - it *is* cheaper than therapy...
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