perl

If you've ever picked up a copy of O'Reilly's Mastering Regular Expressions, then you'll feel right at home with this book. The Pocket Reference is all about usability, and this book is no exception. If you've never seen Mastering Regular Expressions, then this book takes the most important aspects of that book into about 80 pages.

This book is basically divided into various languages (Perl, C, Java, C#) with examples on how to use regular expressions with each language. In addition to discussing the built-in language specific functions that you should use, there is discussion on the differences and nuances to using regular expressions in the specific language.

If you need a desktop quick reference on regular expressions, then I would highly recommend this book. I have it next to my desk with the .NET section bookmarked. If you need something with a little more depth and explanation, then I would suggest picking up a copy of O'Reilly's Mastering Regular Expressions.

I recommend getting this book
if you feel comfortable with regular expressions
and regular expressions are important to you.

As one expects from an O'Reilly Pocket Reference,
this book is compact but still covers a lot of ground.
For a whole bunch of applications, it provides:
* tables of various groupings of regex metacharacters,
summarizing their syntax and meaning;
* summaries of other regex related features,
but not in tabular form;
* examples;
* a few references in case you need to go deeper.

The information is concise and well chosen.

This is a reference,
but in applications where you use regular expressions less,
it may also be useful for expanding your knowledge significantly.
It was for me.

If you wish, take a look at my
more detailed review on Oakland Perl Mongers.

Based on the .NET chapter it would appear that the author tackled too many implementations. It looked like all of the .NET stuff came from the SDK, sans discussion & examples.

Developers worrying about an expression to be executed on several different platforms might find this type of overview helpful. How many folks do that though?