topic Re: Grep question in Operating System - HP-UX

Grep question

Sachin_29 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:22:22 GMT

I am trying to grep for a word ABC in a line withn a file
The file test contains
The word is ABC
Something ABC.orig
when i do grep ABC test|wc -l . It returns 2
Is there any way i could grep for the exact word ABC?

Re: Grep question

Carlo Corthouts — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:26:32 GMT

If ABC.orig is also in that file you can try :

grep ABC test|grep -v ABC.orig | wc -l

Re: Grep question

Sachin_29 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:28:01 GMT

sorry i meant there could be more words where like ABC.dontknow ABC234 etc

Re: Grep question

Pete Randall — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:29:24 GMT

Try

grep " ABC " test

Pete

Re: Grep question

RAC_1 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:31:37 GMT

grep -x [A]BC file

Else get GNU grep.

Anil

Re: Grep question

Sachin_29 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:31:41 GMT

doesnt help pete!!!

Re: Grep question

Franky_1 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:32:14 GMT

Hi,

just

grep " ABC" test

Regards

Franky

Re: Grep question

Carlo Corthouts — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:32:48 GMT

Try grep -w ABC

Re: Grep question

Simon Hargrave — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:32:57 GMT

You'll need anchors: -

If you want to grep for ABC as part of a line: -

grep " ABC " file (note the spaces)

If you want a line with ONLY ABC: -

grep "^ABC$" file (^ anchors start of line, $ anchors end)

Re: Grep question

Simon Hargrave — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:35:33 GMT

If you want to anchor to spaces AND tabs (which may be valid depending on your file), then: -

grep "[ | ]ABC[ | ]" file

Where the brackets contain "space pipe tab"

Re: Grep question

Rick Garland — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:35:35 GMT

`grep -x` will do an EXACT match.

Re: Grep question

John Palmer — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:36:36 GMT

How about:

grep -e " ABC " -e " ABC$" -e "^ABC " -e "^ABC$"

That will find:
1. ABC surrounded by spaces.
2. ABC ending a line
3. ABC starting a line
4. A line consisting only of ABC

Regards,
John

Re: Grep question

Carlo Corthouts — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:37:58 GMT

Or you can do

#man grep

Re: Grep question

Sachin_29 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:39:18 GMT

John I am getting Illegal Variable name?

Re: Grep question

Pete Randall — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:50:51 GMT

The best solution then is the grep -x syntax.
$ grep -x ABC test
ABC
$

Pete

Re: Grep question

Sachin_29 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:53:51 GMT

Pete:
the grep -x ABC doesnt work as it looks for the exact line ..the lines are "The word is ABC" and "Something ABC.orig" so if i do grep -x ABC test|wc -l it returns 0

Re: Grep question

Rick Garland — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:01:58 GMT

The grep -x does not look for exact lines, it looks for exact patterns.

If you have ABC on a line then grep -x ABC will match. If ABC has multiple and different patterns then the grep -x will not match.

Re: Grep question

RAC_1 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:06:07 GMT

grep -w [A]BC

Else get GNU grep

Anil

Re: Grep question

Sachin_29 — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:06:43 GMT

hey
grep ABC$ test works

Re: Grep question

Bill Hassell — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:23:25 GMT

The problem is in the different possibilities of a "word". Typically, a word is defined as text surrounded by whitespace. ABC on a line all by iteself is followed by the whitespace character NEWLINE. In your working example ABC$, grep is looking for ABC at the exact end of the line. ABC$ will not find ABC followed by a space or any other character. The -w option is only for current patches for grep but should work for your requirement.