topic Re: grep command ?? in Operating System - HP-UX

grep command ??

MikeL_4 — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:21:57 GMT

I am using grep command to look through a file for certain entries, like say the word test, but my problem is there are other entries in the file that begin with have test in them that I don't want returned..
ie:

test
test_107
tup_test
etc.....

the grep for tet would return all three entries when I only want the 1st entry returned...

any ways to get around this ??

Thanks
Mike

Re: grep command ??

Ralph Grothe — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:25:04 GMT

if you're after an exact match try fgrep or the -F switch of grep (see manpage),
for more involved parsings use Perl (where amongst other things) you can set anchors in form of word boundaries.

Re: grep command ??

Ian Dennison_1 — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:26:57 GMT

To return just lines that have the word 'test' (and only the word 'test'),...

grep "^test$"

^ = anchor to start of line
$ = anchor to end of line

To get complete word test takes a little more effort.

Share and Enjoy! Ian

Re: grep command ??

Rodney Hills — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:27:11 GMT

Try-

grep "^test$" file

^ matches beginning of line
$ matches end of line

HTH

-- Rod Hills

Re: grep command ??

Ralph Grothe — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:28:44 GMT

sorry -F alone wouldn't help I suppose,
append a [[:space:]] to you're regex while using egrep or -E switch (which stands for extended grep)
but that said, nothing compares to Perl's regex capabilities

Re: grep command ??

H.Merijn Brand (procura — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:29:00 GMT

GNU grep knows -w option, which `anchors' the word to search for

# grep -w test file

GNU grep available on http://www.cmve.net/~merijn or https://www.beepz.com/personal/merijn

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

Re: grep command ??

Tom Jackson — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:29:13 GMT

Hi Mike:

Try this:

grep test filename|head -n 1

Tom

Re: grep command ??

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:29:21 GMT

Hi Mike:

# grep -E -e " test " -e " test$" -e "^test " -e "^test$"

...would limit the selection to the word "test".

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: grep command ??

Hai Nguyen_1 — Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:30:34 GMT

Mike,

Try this:

# grep -x test input_file

Hai