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The Ultimate Linux Shell Scripting Guide
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When you worked with the text-stream filters in Chapter 6, Text Stream Filters Part 1 and Chapter 7, Text Stream Filters Part 2, you were manipulating simple text strings. That is, you were working with alphabetic characters, numbers, and the control characters that allow you to place tabs, spaces, and newlines into your text files. Regular Expressions, which you’ll sometimes see shortened to either regexp or regex, can include text strings, or even be a text string. They can also include special characters, collectively called metacharacters, which give such awesome power to the tools that understand them. In fact, you can think of Regular Expressions as a sort of programming language, with text strings as the words and metacharacters as the punctuation. Rather than just enabling you to search for simple text strings, regular expressions allow you to search for patterns. For example, if you need to search through a file for all telephone numbers...