grep'ping for newline

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

If i have this in VAR
echo $VAR
2

and I want to make sure it's not confused with
20
.
.
299

How do I grep for a newline character or blank

ie
cat /tmp/file
2
3
21

cat /tmp/file | grep '2'
2
21

prefer
cat /tmp/file | grep '2"***Insert_your_10_points_here**"'
2


Later,
Bill

[Duncan Edmonstone · Accepted solution]

In regular experssions '$' is the end of a line, so:

cat /tmp/file | grep '2$'

will match

2

but not:

20
2999

etc.


HTH

Duncan

[Carlos Fernandez Riera]

2$

[Robin Wakefield]

Hi Bill,

grep '2$' filename

$ anchors the grep to the end-of-line
^ anchors to the beginning.

Rgds, Robin.

[Thierry Poels_1]

hi,

how about
cat /tmp/file | grep '2$'

regards,
Thierry

[Vincent Farrugia]

Hello,

grep -x should do the trick.

HTH,
Vince

[Duncan Edmonstone]

And '^' is the start of a line, so to be sure of matching the *exact* contents of a line you could do:

cat /tmp/file | grep '^2$'

which will match on

2

only, and NOT

foobarbaz2999

HTH

^Duncan$
;o)

[Vincent Farrugia]

I mean grep -x '2'

Vince

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,

and how about
grep "id2[[:space:]]"

this will also work for id's followed by whitespace and more text.

regards,
Thierry.