grep, egrep, fgrep - print lines matching a pattern
SYNOPOSIS
grep [ -[[AB] ]num ] [ -[CEFGVBchilnsvwx] ] [ -e ] pattern | -ffile ] [ files... ]
DESCRIPTION
Grep searches the named input files (or standard input if no files are named, or the file
name - is given) for lines containing a match to the given pattern. By default, grep
prints the matching lines.
There are three major variants of grep, controlled by the following options.
-G Interpret pattern as a basic regular expression (see below). This is the default.
-E Interpret pattern as an extended regular expression (see below).
-F Interpret pattern as a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines, any of which
is to be matched.
In addition, two variant programs egrep and fgrep are available. Egrep is similiar (but
not identical) to grep -E, and is compatible with the historical Unix egrep. Fgrep is the
same as grep -F.
All variants of grep understand the following options:
-num Matches will be printed with num lines of leading and trailing context. However,
grep will never print any given line more than once.
-A num Print num lines of trailing context after matching lines.
-B num Print num lines of leading context before matching lines.
-C Equivalent to -2.
-V Print the version number of grep to standard error. This version number should be
included in all bug reports (see below).
-b Print the byte offset within the input file before each line of output.
-c Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching lines for each input
file. With the -v option (see below), count non-matching lines.
-e pattern
Use pattern as the pattern; useful to protect patterns beginning with -.
-f file
Obtain the pattern from file.
-h Suppress the prefixing of filenames on output when multiple files are searched.
-i Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the input files.
-L Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which no
output would normally have been printed.
-l Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which output
would normally have been printed.
-n Prefix each line of output with the line number within its input file.
-q Quiet; suppress normal output.
-s Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files.
-v Invert the sense of matching, to select non-matching lines.
-w Select only those lines containing matches that form whole words. The test is that
the matching substring must either be at the beginning of the line, or preceded by
a non-word constituent character. Similarly, it must be either at the end of the
line or followed by a non-word constituent character. Word-constituent characters
are letters, digits, and the underscore.
-x Select only those matches that exactly match the whole line.
REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
bine smaller expressions.
Grep understands two different versions of regular expression syntax: ``basic'' and
``extended.'' In GNU grep, there is no difference in available functionality using either
syntax. In other implementations, basic regular expressions are less powerful. The folÐ
lowing description applies to extended regular expressions; differences for basic regular
expressions are summarized afterwards.
The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match a single character.
Most characters, including all letters and digits, are regular expressions that match
themselves. Any metacharacter with special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a
backslash.
A list of characters enclosed by [ and ] matches any single character in that list; if the
first character of the list is the caret ^ then it matches any character not in the list.
For example, the regular expression [0123456789] matches any single digit. A range of
ASCII characters may be specified by giving the first and last characters, separated by a
hyphen. Finally, certain named classes of characters are predefined. Their names are
self explanatory, and they are [:alnum:], [:alpha:], [:cntrl:], [:digit:], [:graph:],
[:lower:], [:print:], [:punct:], [:space:], [:upper:], and [:xdigit:]. For example,
[[:alnum:]] means [0-9A-Za-z], except the latter form is dependent upon the ASCII characÐ
ter encoding, whereas the former is portable. (Note that the brackets in these class
names are part of the symbolic names, and must be included in addition to the brackets
delimiting the bracket list.) Most metacharacters lose their special meaning inside
lists. To include a literal ] place it first in the list. Similarly, to include a litÐ
eral ^ place it anywhere but first. Finally, to include a literal - place it last.
The period . matches any single character. The symbol \w is a synonym for [[:alnum:]]
and \W is a synonym for [^[:alnum]].
The caret ^ and the dollar sign $ are metacharacters that respectively match the empty
string at the beginning and end of a line. The symbols \< and \> respectively match the
empty string at the beginning and end of a word. The symbol \b matches the empty string
at the edge of a word, and \B matches the empty string provided it's not at the edge of a
word.
A regular expression matching a single character may be followed by one of several repetiÐ
tion operators:
? The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
* The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
+ The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
{n} The preceding item is matched exactly n times.
{n,} The preceding item is matched n or more times.
{,m} The preceding item is optional and is matched at most m times.
{n,m} The preceding item is matched at least n times, but not more than m times.
Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular expression matches any
string formed by concatenating two substrings that respectively match the concatenated
subexpressions.
Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator |; the resulting regular
expression matches any string matching either subexpression.
nation. A whole subexpression may be enclosed in parentheses to override these precedence
rules.
The backreference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring previously matched
by the nth parenthesized subexpression of the regular expression.
In basic regular expressions the metacharacters ?, +, {, |, (, and ) lose their special
meaning; instead use the backslashed versions \?, \+, \{, \|, \(, and \).
In egrep the metacharacter { loses its special meaning; instead use \{.
DIAGNOSTICS
Normally, exit status is 0 if matches were found, and 1 if no matches were found. (The -v
option inverts the sense of the exit status.) Exit status is 2 if there were syntax
errors in the pattern, inaccessible input files, or other system errors.
BUGS
Email bug reports to bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu. Be sure to include the word ``grep''
somewhere in the ``Subject:'' field.
Large repetition counts in the {m,n} construct may cause grep to use lots of memory. In
addition, certain other obscure regular expressions require exponential time and space,
and may cause grep to run out of memory.
Backreferences are very slow, and may require exponential time.