Hi! From what I understand, you are trying to go to 1,000 mph from 0 mph. To start on this journey, a basic understanding of Perl is necessary. Perhaps, this book: Perl for Dummies might be a starting place? I haven't seen it, but some basics are necessary to get to the point where you can solve a problem even if you are a regex black belt.

To see where regex can go, the "classic" is Mastering Regex by Friedl. This is definitely not a beginner book! The reason that I mention it is that you will see what kind of problems can be solved with regex even if you only understand 10% of the book.

Sorry that we can't meet in person, I live in California and that is a bit of a trek to meet for coffee.

Update: There is apparently some issue with the "Dummies" book. I haven't seen it (and I did mention that fact above). Learning Perl does get a thumbs up from me. I do have Friedl's book.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.