Regular Expressions

[Davo1977]

I have been trying my hardest to get to grips with using regular expressions in perl and dont seem to be having any luck with understanding it.

What I really need is perhaps some real-life examples of were regular expressions have been used. I am a novice and until I can get my hands on some worked examples I will continue to struggle to gain understanding.

Can anyone advise me on some good examples or simply point me in the right direction? Useful Text Books that are not a waste of money? or Decent resources?

Thanks for your advice..

[phranque]

this regular expressions tutorial [etext.lib.virginia.edu] is linked from the Apache Web Server forum charter and is a good place to start.

[rocknbil]

Also the documentation at [perl.com...] . I feel for ya, and still struggle with regexps myself sometimes after all these years.

[perl_diver]

The best regexp primer I ever came across was in Perl 5 by Example. It really walks the user through the basics very well. It is a little old now and will not cover newer features that regexps support in the newest version of perl, but it is still a good basic primer. I think it is avaible for free online these days. Note: the book, the original anyway, had some errors (they almost all do). They may have been fixed or are discussed in the errata section of the book (if there is one).

I found the book online here:

[computer-books.us...]

it appears to be legal (not a pirated copy).