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Before we can start working with GREP, let's first to find exactly what GREP is.
GREP started as a command line text searching utility for the Unix Operating System.
Originally, it was an acronym for the task of globally searching for a
regular expression and printing the results, and the command line for that
was GREP, hence GREP. Over time, that acronym has also been translated
as General Regular Expression Parser among other interpretations, but whatever
variation of the name is used, the regular expression part never changes.
So what's a regular expression and what is parsing?
A regular expression is a means of describing text, text patterns, or
conditions within text. Most regular expressions don't actually have
to contain any literal text at all. Text in a regular expression is described
by what's called metacharacters, which stand in for actual characters.
You can use individual metacharacters, like any digit, to search for one specific
thing or combine many different metacharacters into an expression that
describes a pattern of text. Parsing is the process of sifting through
text to find the patterns described by that regular expression.
Although GREP's origins are in computer programming, over the years it's
found its way into many text-editing applications, which exposed it to many
more nonprogrammers. Now, GREP has been built directly into Adobe
InDesign, which has made it a mainstream technology available to designers,
production artists, and document producers, who can really benefit from its
capabilities. It may look a bit intimidating at first, but
GREP is not as formidable as it seems once you understand its basic concepts.
And when you see how much time it can save you, you'll find its well worth
the learning curve.