When it comes to quickly dealing with large blocks of data, batch processing operations or screen scraping, regular expressions are often the most effective solution. There's just one problem, though - learning them can be as hard as learning a new language altogether. Here's how to get off to a flying start.

He points you first in the direction of the preg_* functions then towards a few examples (like with mod_rewrite) and tools to help you understand how things match, like the regex tested extension for firefox and the regular expression cheat sheet on ILoveJackDaniels.com.

Here are some resources to help you not only learn PHP, but also reference PHP information should you ever need it. This list isn't exhaustive, however, it should provide you with a lot of help when you need your PHP fix.

Some of the sites included in their list include:

• W3Schools PHP Tutorials
• Good PHP Tutorials
• PHPFreaks
• ONLamp