Is that a valid e-mail address or just a SQL probe? Does that folder full of Word files have any credit card or bank routing numbers? How can I easily extract just a few important bits of weather data from a page full of raw HTML? If you've been coding or scripting for any time at all, then you know the answer — regular expressions or regexes. For most of us, though, regex is one of those "I'll get around to it one day" things. While d=digit, s=white space, and so on is relatively easy to learn, regex soon becomes opaque.

In this medium-deep dive, award-winning author, teacher and veteran of more text processing debacles than he prefers to remember, Mark Minasi, shines a light on how regex works and how to get the most out of it. Attend this session because Mark "sed" so.

You will learn:

• What regular expressions are and why on Earth you would use this "looks like line noise" tool
• About both regex recognitions and captures
• How to use them with PowerShell — even if you don't know PowerShell