egrep

egrep [options ] [regexp ] [files ]

Search one or more files for lines that match a regular expression regexp . egrep doesn't support the metacharacters \( , \) , \ n , \< , \> , \{ , or \} , but does support the other metacharacters, as well as the extended set + , ? , | , and ( ) . Remember to enclose these characters in quotes. Regular expressions are described in Chapter 6, Pattern Matching . Exit status is 0 if any lines match, 1 if not, and 2 for errors. See also grep and fgrep .

Options

-b

Precede each line with its block number. (Not terribly useful.)

-c

Print only a count of matched lines.

-e regexp

Use this if regexp begins with - .

-f file

Take expression from file .

-h

List matched lines but not filenames (inverse of -l ).

-i

Ignore uppercase and lowercase distinctions.

-l

List filenames but not matched lines.

-n

Print lines and their line numbers.

-s

Silent mode: print only error messages, and return the exit status. Not on SVR4, but common on most commercial Unix systems.

-v

Print all lines that don't match regexp .

Examples

Search for occurrences of Victor or Victoria in file :

egrep 'Victor(ia)?' 

file

egrep '(Victor|Victoria)' 

file

Find and print strings such as old.doc1 or new.doc2 in files , and include their line numbers:

egrep -n '(old|new)\.doc?' 

files