The series of books that cover the so called Learn X in [10 mins|24 hours|21 days] are usually ones to be avoided. Either because they are quite simply downright awful or because they leave you feeling confused because they introduce a topic and then have to leave it mid-way because "your time is up". Strangely, Ben Forta's Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes is surprisingly good. Ben's position as an author was never in doubt, thanks mainly to his best-selling ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit as well as the sequel, Advanced ColdFusion MX Web Application Development ... but enough unpaid promotion. Regular Expressions(RE from now on) are something I've never really gotten into, either because I simply didn't feel the need to, or when I had the need it was usually easy enough to fire up Google and find what I wanted. Coming in at a paltry £7.69 I decided it wouldn't be money wasted even if the book was bog standard. In typical Forta style though, Ben has managed to put together a simple, "here's the basics" book that introduces you to RE but doesn't leave you feeling light headed due to a lack of, or an overload of information. Taking you through the principles and mechanisms of what make up RE, Ben gives you examples and explanations that outline exactly what is going on. He also states the differences in the level of support provided by different languages, e.g. Java, ColdFusion, .NET, PHP, etc. And for those that simply want solutions to your typical RE problems, such as email address validation, post code validation, etc Ben has provided an appendix that does just that. A handy guide at the back of the book also gives you a reference to the common syntax used in RE. A worthwhile book to have in your collection, and at £7.69 it's even more of a bargain.