5 ways I use regex in Linux (and why they're so essential)

TEK IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images Quick: If you shout "regular expressions" in a crowd of Linux users, what happens? Answer: Everyone will tell you the right way to use them, and every answer will be different. Regular expressions -- often called regex -- are sequences of characters that define a search pattern in text. That makes them sound like a one-trick pony, but you'd be surprised at how useful these things are. Regular expressions can be used for partner matching, text processing, data validation, and much more. Also: 5 Linux commands I use to keep my device running smoothly The one caveat to using regular expressions is that they can become very complex -- almost to the point of being their own language. Once you get the hang of regex, you'll find them invaluable. There are things you can do with regular expressions that you can't do with anything else, and they make interacting with the command line or even bash scripts so much more powerful. Let me highlight ... Read full article.