Re: [MacPerl] Peter's Perl Predicament

[Tim Kirby <trk@cray.com>]

Shawn Pearce wrote:
> Peter wrote:
> >I have ordered 'Learning Perl' from  O'Reilly's but it hasn't arrived yet.
> >If anyone can spare the time to help me out here I'd be very grateful.
> 
> Ok.  Get yourself a UNIX box for a minute, and at the command line type
> "man grep".  Read the pages for it...

FWIW - and with the following caveats:

 + I have not read "Learning Perl, so I don't know how well the subject is
   dealt with in that particular volume

 + There are some differences in the way the regular expressions are handled
   between the two utilities

...for the beginner trying to understand the vagaries of regular expressions
I always thought the description in

   "sed & awk" (Dale Dougherty, a Nutshell book from O'Reilly & Associates)

is one of the best I've seen. You don't need to be a UNIX god to read that
and you probably don't need to buy the book - try and borrow a copy and read
chapter 3 (Understanding Regular Expression Syntax). Of course, reading other
parts of that book gives some useful insight into where Perl "came from", so
to speak.

Like I said, FWIW.

Tim
-- 
Tim Kirby                    - trk@cray.com -                +1-(612)-683-5390
Information Systems Support _____________________ Cray Research, Eagan MN, USA
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