Grep

Internal

• Linux
• sed

Overview

grep accepts regular expressions. Both " " and ' ' can be used to enclose the expression to search for.

If the expression is found, the enclosing lines are sent to stdout the command returns 0 (success).

If the expression is NOT found, the command returns 1 (failure).

    if grep -q "some regex" ./file.txt; then
        # do something if expression is found
    else
        # do something else if the expression is not found
    fi

Regular Expressions

^ - beginning of line

$ - end of line

\t - tab

[0-9]*

\. dot

Recipes

Including TWO expressions at the same time

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'processor\|siblings'

processor	: 0
siblings	: 2
processor	: 1
siblings	: 2

The method works even if there are spaces and other regular expression characters within the alternative regexes:

... | grep ' logger: [1-9]\+\.\|(concurrent mode failure)'

This will select either "logger: [1-9]\+\." or "(concurrent mode failure)"

Excluding TWO expressions at the same time

grep -v "blah" 

!!!Do not Send Anything to stout

... and avoid > /dev/null:

{{{

   grep -q

}}}

!!!--color

{{{ grep --color 'context.layer=' }}}

!!!-n

Prefixes the line with the line number.

See [sed#InsertALineAppendInASpecificPositionLineNumberInAFile]

!!!Characters that Need Escaping

Same as [sed#SpecialCharactersNeedToBeEscapedInRegularExpressions]

!!!Return Only the First Match

{{{ -m 1 }}}

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