egrep(1) UNIX System V(Directory and File Management Utilities) egrep(1)
NAME
egrep - search a file for a pattern using full regular expressions
SYNOPSIS
egrep [options] full_regular_expression [file . . . ]
DESCRIPTION
egrep (expression grep) searches files for a pattern of characters and
prints all lines that contain that pattern. egrep uses full regular
expressions (expressions that have string values that use the full set of
alphanumeric and special characters) to match the patterns. It uses a
fast deterministic algorithm that sometimes needs exponential space.
egrep accepts the same full regular expressions accepted by ed, with six
exceptions:
\( \< \{m
\) \> n\}
(The regular expressions \( and \) should not be confused with
parentheses used for grouping.) In addition, egrep accepts the following
expressions:
1. A full regular expression followed by + that matches one or more
occurrences of the full regular expression.
2. A full regular expression followed by ? that matches 0 or 1
occurrences of the full regular expression.
3. Full regular expressions separated by | or by a newline that match
strings that are matched by any of the expressions.
4. A full regular expression that may be enclosed in parentheses ()
for grouping.
Be careful using the characters $, *, [, ^, |, (, ), and \ in
full_regular_expression, because they are also meaningful to the shell.
It is safest to enclose the entire full_regular_expression in single
quotes ' . . . '.
The order of precedence of operators is [], then *?+, then concatenation,
then | and newline.
If no files are specified, egrep assumes standard input. Normally, each
line found is copied to the standard output. The filename is printed
before each line found if there is more than one input file.
Command line options are:
-b Precede each line by the block number on which it was found. This
can be useful in locating block numbers by context (first block is
0).
-c Print only a count of the lines that contain the pattern.
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egrep(1) UNIX System V(Directory and File Management Utilities) egrep(1)
-i Ignore uppercase/lowercase distinction during comparisons.
-h Suppress printing of filenames when searching multiple files.
-l Print the names of files with matching lines once, separated by
newlines. Does not repeat the names of files when the pattern is
found more than once.
-n Precede each line by its line number in the file (first line is 1).
-v Print all lines except those that contain the pattern.
-e special_expression
Search for a special_expression (full_regular_expression that
begins with a -).
-f file
Take the list of full_regular_expressions from file.
SEE ALSO
ed(1), fgrep(1), grep(1), sed(1), sh(1).
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 if any matches are found, 1 if none, 2 for syntax errors
or inaccessible files (even if matches were found).
NOTES
Ideally there should be only one grep command, but there is not a single
algorithm that spans a wide enough range of space-time tradeoffs. Lines
are limited to BUFSIZ characters; longer lines are truncated. BUFSIZ is
defined in /usr/include/stdio.h.
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