[Techtalk] copying similar files in one command

Kathryn Andersen kat_lists at katspace.com
Mon Nov 1 07:40:44 EST 2004


On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 06:13:59PM +0100, gebhard dettmar wrote:
> > If you need more information, you can lookup regular expressions, wich
> > is what makes the command line so powerfull from time to time.
> > With regular expression you can specify what kinds of characters
> > should be in there and how many, and even wich characters should not
> > be in there and so on and so on.
> And so on ;-) Exactly. RegExes are pure magic and if you often deal with 
> editing text files it is highly recommendable to spent some time and 
> effort in them. It can save you from work that would drive you nuts 
> without using them. I got me the book: Jeffrey Friedl, Mastering Regular 
> Expressionsm, 1997 O'Reilly. Better to read than the man page :-)

Mind you, that book is definitely more than he needs to know for *shell*
regular expressions, since they are a small subset of full-blown REs.
However, if one is actually dealing with full-blown REs... one still
doesn't need to read that book if one doesn't want to.  On the other
hand, if one *does* feel the inclination to do so, I'd second the
reccommendation: "Mastering Regular Expressions" ought to be subtitled
"More than you Ever Even Imagined about Regular Expressions and didn't
even Think of Asking"

I have only gotten a third of the way through it, and it still taught me
a lot.

Kathryn Andersen
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