#GREP USAGE SAMPLE HOW TO#

Grep has a wide range of practical applications. subdir2/examplefile3.txt:this is line 1 unix subdir1/examplefile2.txt:this is line 4 unix unix Although there are multiple methods for achieving the same results (like most things in UNIX and Linux), having an easy to remember option to use with the grep command simplifies the task for you. The -r option can be used to recursively search all files under a directory.

These UNIX grep command examples show how it works:Įxamplefile2.txt:this is line 4 unix unixĮxamplefile2.txt:this is line 3 UNIX UNIX A wildcard search may come in handy when you can't remember what file contains a certain data item. It lists the name of a file before each line. Grep will search multiple files if you add a wildcard to the filename. The '-e' option is not accepted by grep in UNIX, but Linux will list every line that contains at least one of the words: You may use '-e' to find multiple words or a pattern that begins with a hyphen. (8) Search file for multiple patterns or for patterns beginning with hyphen (-) (Linux ONLY) It may be used on both UNIX and Linux systems, and as you will discover, is a VERY handy option to know. You can search for lines that don't contain a pattern by adding the '-v' option. (7) Show lines from file that DO NOT contain the search pattern Nothing too interesting (or exciting) here. It is desirable when you only want to display the matching patterns: The grep command in UNIX doesn't support the '-o' option, but you may use it under Linux. (6) Show only the part of line matching pattern (Linux ONLY) If you are not familiar with command return values, or return values in general, 0 typically always means true and a non-zero number (it does not have to be 1) means false. A result of 1 indicates no match was found. Note: It should be obvious, but if it's not 0 indicates true, meaning a match was found. The result (return value) of the search can then be checked by the shell script to determine what logic should be followed. This is useful when grep is embedded within a shell script and you want to check if a pattern exists in one or more files but do not want to generate any output during processing. The second example above shows that you can always add '-i' to perform case-insensitive searches.Īdding the -q option prevents grep from writing anything to standard output. It will not show any lines or words when you use the '-c' option. (4) Display how many lines contain the search patternĪnother option instructs grep to count the number of times a pattern appears. This makes it easier to locate the pattern in a large file that doesn't have its own line numbers. The '-n' option adds line numbers to the output: One of the grep options allows you to search for words in a case-insensitive manner:Īll lines containing the word unix, regardless of if it's lowercase, uppercase or a mix of both, are returned. (2) Ignore upper and lower case distinction The following example shows what happens if you use grep to search for the word 'unix' in a text file:īy default, it displays the only line that contains 'unix' in lowercase letters. (3) Families, communities and countries are becoming more divided, contrary to Facebook's stated mission of building community (2) People's behavior, including yours if you use Facebook, is being manipulated by Facebook's subjective Newsfeed algorithm the Rohingya in Myanmar), bullying and mental health problems enabled by Facebook (1) People are dying as the result of genocide (ie. It is breaking our world and is hurting people. The time has come to END the social experiment known as Facebook. # PLEASE READ AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDER # If you leave out the filename, UNIX will collect data from the standard input device. For example, an asterisk is treated as a wildcard when you don't use quotes. The UNIX shell does not interpret dollar signs, brackets, parentheses, pipes or asterisks in the same way as letters. If it contains multiple words or special characters, be sure to place single quotation marks before and after the pattern.

The syntax for this UNIX command includes three parameters, but only the text pattern is required: Grep also has the ability to count instances of a search phrase that appear in a file. You can broaden the results by using wildcards. It returns a list of the matching words or shows each line of text that contains them. The UNIX Grep command searches files for a user-specified text pattern.

#GREP USAGE SAMPLE HOW TO#

10 UNIX Grep Command Examples of How to Search a File for a Pattern

Grep usage sample