Pro Perl Parsing

Christopher M. Frenz has put together a real how to manual for those who use Perl for parsing. Grabbing the data you want from a file can be tricky but Frenz has taken parsing from the top shelf and placed it where any Perl programmer can use it. The opening chapter is great for anyone who has had trouble understanding how to use the regular expressions as built into Perl. He explains Pattern Matching, Quantifiers, and how not to be Greedy with your pattern matching. However, the book goes far beyond the basics of regular expressions in Perl to various libraries which can be used for parsing HTML, XML, RSS, and any text based file. Chapter 2 of the book seems very heady as he discusses the use of Generative Grammars which is foundational for anyone wanting to truly understand parsing. From Chomsky's grammar to Type 1, 2, and 3 grammars, he details these structures and how to use them. Perl modules GraphViz::Regex, Regexp::Common, Parse::Yapp, Parse::RecDescent, HTML::TreeBuilder, XML::LibXML, XML::SAX, and XML::RSS are all discussed in this book and clear examples are given on how you can use them to parse files to get the data you want. In the end of the book is a section on Data Mining well worth the read dealing with Descriptive Modeling and Predictive Modeling. For anyone doing data mining work from Web based data or from Relational Databases this section can be very helpful.

Wow! I do a lot of data parsing and this book is one of the best finds I have ever made. I should point out, however, that it is not for the average reader. This book is very technical in nature but absolutely fabulous if you are technically inclined or already proficient in Perl or have some experience parsing using another language. It seems that I am always finding strange problems that create a need to parse large amounts of data to extract only the relevant information and present it in a usable form. Author Christopher M. Frenz covers the whole gamut of parsing and does so in a very logical progressive manner. First he starts with the use of regular expressions and does a great job including some complex example of just what can be done. From there he moves to generative grammars and how they can be used to determine relevant data of interest within a text, XML or similar file. Then from there he builds on your understanding by discussing specialized modules that can be added to your Perl implementation and how they are used. And, of course, he discusses data mining and how to efficiently use this information. This is an excellent technical book that is a required resource for anyone using Perl to parse documents. Pro Perl Parsing is highly recommended.

Some of this was a little over my head. I'm "ok" with regular expressions, but when it gets into grammars, I'm a little weak and have some room to grow. That's OK: I know I need to learn more in this area. After all, what's the point of a book if it doesn't help you grow? I liked that this introduced and explained parsing related CPAN modules that I otherwise might have been afraid to touch (CPAN is a great resource, but there's so much there that it intimidates those of us who aren't real Perl experts). The examples generally related to things I do every day, so that was helpful. I'll need to spend more time in the grammar sections, and try out some of the CPAN modules, but this book is a definite keeper.

This is a great book on parsing for novices that goes over the different kinds of parsing tasks, looks at the different tools available, and gives numerous examples. It's also a great book for experienced Perl programmers who have limited experience with parsing, other than Text::CSV_XS and regexes. The most time is spent on Parse::RecDescent, the most popular parsing module for Perl, but it doesn't give others, like Text::Balanced and Parse::YAPP, short shrift. Later, he gives excellent help on parsing HTML and XML, and in the final chapters he introduces text and data mining. Quite an education! So whether you have to parse structured or semi-structured text, you want to build yourself a little command language, you need to scan gobs of web or other documents for information, or have any parsing task where your regexes are just getting out of hand, then check out this book. P.S. I don't know what psychoactives the first reviewer had consumed, but this book is not about "medical-text processing in particular," or even generally. It could be used for that, but it is a general, intermediate-to-advanced book on parsing with Perl. If you were thinking of buying it, it is what you think it is, and not what Dr. Oscar thinks it is.

Pro Perl Parsing is a major advance to the field of programming Perl in general, and medical-text processing in particular (among many others). Pro Perl Parsing presents a unique conceptual framework for application of regexps, and goes beyond hinting on the importance of parsing for generating medical lexicons from massive sources of patient-specific encounter data. Pro Perl Parsing sets the stage (structure) for application of programming intelligence in clinical medicine using Perl. It is an outstanding piece of scholarship! Oscar A. Linares, MD, PhD (Applied Mathematics)