Regular Expressions

Regular expressions, or regex, might seem daunting at first, but they’re an incredibly powerful tool for anyone working with text, especially in Bash scripting. This chapter is designed to ease you into the world of regex, starting from the basics and gradually moving to more complex patterns and techniques. Whether you’re looking to validate email addresses, search for specific patterns in log files, or automate text processing tasks, understanding regex is a game-changer. We’ll explore how to craft regex patterns, understand their structure, and apply them in practical scenarios. By the end of this chapter, you’ll not only be comfortable using regex but also appreciate how they can make your scripting tasks more efficient and versatile.

This chapter builds on the topics you learned about in the previous chapter. Regex is frequently used together with variables and conditional statements. For example, you’re likely going to...