'''Mastering Regular Expressions''', by Author: [Jeffrey E. F. Friedl]


** Attributes **

   author:   [Jeffrey E. F. Friedl]

   publisher:   [O'Reilly]

   website (first edition):   http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/

   website (second edition):   http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/

   website (third edition):   http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex3/

   website (third edition):   http://regex.info/book.html


** Description **


This book explains [regular expression%|%regular expressions] in general, and
then covers a number of different tools explaining specialized variations.  The
book focuses more on [Perl], but Tcl is one of the tools covered in its own
special section.  And more...

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The second edition praises Tcl's regular expression engine: ''Henry's Tcl regex
engine is an important step forward.''

Also, in Chapter 6: Crafting an Efficient Expression, Friedl says: ''Most of
what this chapter talks about simply does not apply to Tcl.'' And, as the
sidebar explains, Henry Spencer's Tcl regex is a hybrid DFA/NFA engine and it
doesn't need most of the optimizations described in the chapter.

In Chapter 4 of the third edition, The Mechansics of Expression Processing,
Friedl says:  ''Tcl’s regex engine is a true hybrid, custom built by Henry
Spencer (whom you may remember having played an important part in the early
develop- ment and popularization of regular expressions, page 88). The Tcl engine
some- times appears to be an NFA — it has lookaround, capturing parentheses,
back- r efer ences, and lazy quantifiers. Yet, it has true POSIX
longest-leftmost match (page 177), and doesn’t suf fer fr om some of the NFA pr
oblems that we’ll see in Chapter 6. It really seems quite wonderful.''

<<categories>> Book | Regular Expression | Jeffrey E. F. Friedl