ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 focused on Linux. Chapter 10 also focuses on a Linux-related topic, that of regular expressions. Regular expressions provide a powerful tool for Linux users and administrators. With regular expressions, a user can search through text files not for specific strings but for strings that fit a particular pattern of interest. Linux offers the grep program, which performs such a search task given a regular expression. In this chapter, regular expressions are introduced along with numerous examples and an examination of grep. Because of the challenging nature in learning regular expressions, the reader should be aware that mastery of them only comes with an extensive experience and that this can be a difficult chapter to read and understand. It is recommended that the reader try out many of these examples. The chapter also examines the use of Bash wildcards.
