Java Regular Expressions: Taming the java.util.regex Engine [Paperback]

Mehran Habibi (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590591070 | ISBN-13: 978-1590591079 | Publication Date: October 29, 2003 | Edition: 1

This is the only book to use the Java library to process regular expressions. It is appealing because it has so many examples. Regular expressions books are not so much "studied" as they are "looked through" and mined for good solutions. For example, the right regex expression can replace an entire page of code with two lines. Java/J2SE 1.4 adds a library for handling regular expressions. Regular expressions are text expressions used to find bits of information in larger bits of text, like 'find me all sentences with the word John' in it, or does any file include '5 e's'... The author offers a look at what regular expressions are and how to use the Java library to process regular expressions.  There are plenty of examples to show typical and atypical uses of the library, a powerful learning tool.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"At long last, a book devoted to regular expressions in Java. … author Mehran Habibi does a pretty good job … . lots of examples, with clear coding and an annotated explanation … . for those who want to get the most out of the regular expressions this is worth having around. … Having covered all of the core concepts and methods … . appendices provide some additional reference material, concluding with a set of common useful patterns. … the book does provide a very firm grounding … ." (techbookreport.com, March, 2004)

About the Author

Mehran Habibi is an Application Architect for BankOne in Columbus, Ohio, where he resides with his lovely wife, Angela. Mehran has over eight years of IT experience, including positions with UUNET, Executive Jet, IBM, and OCLC. He has also worked as a university lecturer, national and international speaker, independent consultant, and Java certification instructor. Technologies of interest include Web Services, wireless tech, Java, and yes, C#.

Mehran’s professional focus is on architecture, XP team integration, technology leadership, and mentoring. He was a member of the honors program at The Ohio State University, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in software engineering, and holds certifications in VC++, SCJP, and the SCJD.

Product Details

• Paperback: 255 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (October 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590591070
• ISBN-13: 978-1590591079
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,168,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Taming developers for the REGEX adventure, May 4, 2006

By 

Ganeshji Marwaha (India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Regular Expressions: Taming the java.util.regex Engine (Paperback)

Java, with simplicity being the prime motto started off by striking off pointers, generics, multiple inheritance, regex, high-end reflection etc., from the core language. But as time progressed, folks at sun started bringing those features back into the language out of growing necessity. Java 1.2 added a proper Collections API, Java 1.3 added Dynamic Proxy model, Java 1.4 added Regex, Java 1.5 added generics and so on...

Regular Expressions (REGEX) are one of those weirdly named concepts that establishes a back-off-i-am-complex sort of impression at first sight. Admittedly, it has a strong mathematical foundation and a tidy sum of theory backing its existence. But, that doesnt mean that learning and using them in programming languages have to be difficult, in fact it is not even close to difficult as long as we are well guided by trained personnel.

In this book, the author attempts to train us on regular expressions as it applies to java.

Chapter 1 answers questions like "What is a regular expression" and "How to create regular expressions with that weird syntax".
In my opinion, this chapter is a tad quicker than one would like. So, those new to regex might find it a bit intimidating.

Chapter 2 introduces you to the java's regex object model. Specifically the Pattern and Matcher objects are addressed along with the additions to the String class.
At first, i thought that this chapter is nothing but a copy-paste of javadocs. Later, when i referred javadocs for further information i realized that the author truly took the pain to decode it before presenting it here. This chapter is a good reference for the java regex object model.

Chapter 3 explains the advanced concepts like groups, subgroups, back-references, greedy qualifiers, possessive qualifiers, reluctant qualifiers, positive look-aheads, negative look-aheads, positive look-behinds and negative look-behinds. Finally, the author enlightens us with some tips on how to create efficient regular expressions.
In my opinion, this section is too thin. It covers too many concepts in too little pages. I would have expected a more exhaustive coverage here.

Chapter 4 tries to demonstrate practical usage of regular expressions in the context of an object oriented language like java.
This chapter is too ambitious about being practical; and gets too involved with file I/O and NIO than is necessary. Reading this chapter is a waste of time because it neither explains NIO nor REGEX well.

Chapter 5 takes a few of real-life use-cases like Email validation, Phone Number validation etc. and attempts to solve it.
Again, i was hoping that this section will contain interesting information, but was very dissapointed. Many examples were a mere copy-paste from earlier chapters.

Bottomline, if you are looking for a head start in java regex; this book helps. But, if you are looking for an indepth coverage of concepts, the art of writing efficient expressions and are expecting to become a regex expert, then this book alone wont suffice. You might have to try reading this book(for java api) along with "Mastering Regular Expressions" (for regex concepts) to achieve that goal.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Shame On the Editor, August 4, 2004

By 

Randy (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Regular Expressions: Taming the java.util.regex Engine (Paperback)

I am relatively new to Java. Although I have forgotten most of what I once knew about regular expressions, I remember their power quite well. So I was very excited when I saw this book. But here's my unfortunate conclusion: The editing of this book is so sloppy, the typos so frequent and often grossly misleading, that what should have been a pleasure turned out to be a chore. Having said that, I will certainly admit that I got enough information to begin playing around with RE in Java myself. But I doubt I will ever buy another book from this publisher.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Taming what?, July 3, 2005

By 

Riccardo Audano (Chiavari, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Java Regular Expressions: Taming the java.util.regex Engine (Paperback)

This book starts very well with a practical, easy to follow, step-to-step introduction to regular expressions and their use with Java. This is to be appreciated since regexp are a complex subject that can easily be presented in an intimidating and obscure way. The problem is, this books never soars over this elementary level and in the end leaves you a bit disappointed even if you are totally new to the subject. The book is small and there are lots of white spaces, repetitions and not so useful discussions. I am under the unpleasant impression that the author and publisher realized the book lacked some meat and tried to cover up for it. It can still be a useful text if you want a really gentle intro to regexp usage in Java, but be warned that it lacks a serious and convincing treatment of regexp syntax. You will come out from this book with the ability to use regular expresisons only for really simple cases.
The subtitle should be "a light intro to java.util.regex engine" and not certainly "taming the java.util.regex engine".