Understanding Regular Expressions

The regular expression (regex) has been around for over 60 years and it's still poorly understood—and incorrectly used—by most developers. Why? Mainly because regexes are rarely taught to developers; they’re just left to "pick them up" as they go along. This means most developers don't know what regexes do, how they work, how to use them, how to optimize them, or how to maintain them. In this course, regex expert Damian Conway changes this equation. He explains regexes in detail and shows you the power of these amazing and efficient tools. Bonus: learners will receive a 12-page cheat-sheet for download that shows all major regex constructs across six dialects.

• Learn how to think about regexes and stop being confused, confounded, or terrified by them
• Master what each regex component does and the problems it can solve
• Discover the pitfalls of each regex component and learn how to avoid these mistakes
• Learn why regexes run slowly and how to optimize them (sometimes by orders of magnitude)
• Explore ways to decompose and refactor a regex
• Gain experience building complex regexes that work

Dr. Damian Conway is a widely sought-after speaker, trainer, and author. He runs Thoughtstream, an international IT training company serving clients throughout Australasia, North America, and Europe; he designed the regex mechanism for Perl 6; and he's written multiple O'Reilly titles, including Modern Perl Best Practices and Mastering VIM.