xref: /openbsd-src/usr.bin/grep/grep.1 (revision 03848a0fe6220d28d12d9675a1a2ec69ec26e367)

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.\"	@(#)grep.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: November 15 2023 $
.Dt GREP 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm grep , egrep , fgrep ,
.Nm zgrep , zegrep , zfgrep
.Nd file pattern searcher
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm grep
.Bk -words
.Op Fl abcEFGHhIiLlnoqRsUVvwxZ
.Op Fl A Ar num
.Op Fl B Ar num
.Op Fl C Ns Op Ar num
.Op Fl e Ar pattern
.Op Fl f Ar file
.Op Fl m Ar num
.Op Fl -binary-files Ns = Ns Ar value
.Op Fl -context Ns Op = Ns Ar num
.Op Fl -label Ns = Ns Ar name
.Op Fl -line-buffered
.Op Fl -null
.Op Ar pattern
.Op Ar
.Ek
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm grep
utility searches any given input files,
selecting lines that match one or more patterns.
By default, a pattern matches an input line if the regular expression
(RE) in the pattern matches the input line
without its trailing newline.
An empty expression matches every line.
Each input line that matches at least one of the patterns is written
to the standard output.
If no file arguments are specified, the standard input is used.
.Pp
.Nm grep
is used for simple patterns and
basic regular expressions
.Pq BREs ;
.Nm egrep
can handle extended regular expressions
.Pq EREs .
See
.Xr re_format 7
for more information on regular expressions.
.Nm fgrep
is quicker than both
.Nm grep
and
.Nm egrep ,
but can only handle fixed patterns
(i.e. it does not interpret regular expressions).
Patterns may consist of one or more lines,
allowing any of the pattern lines to match a portion of the input.
.Pp
.Nm zgrep ,
.Nm zegrep ,
and
.Nm zfgrep
act like
.Nm grep ,
.Nm egrep ,
and
.Nm fgrep ,
respectively, but accept input files compressed with the
.Xr compress 1
or
.Xr gzip 1
compression utilities.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl A Ar num
Print
.Ar num
lines of trailing context after each match.
See also the
.Fl B
and
.Fl C
options.
.It Fl a
Treat all files as ASCII text.
Normally
.Nm
will simply print
.Dq Binary file ... matches
if files contain binary characters.
Use of this option forces
.Nm
to output lines matching the specified pattern.
.It Fl B Ar num
Print
.Ar num
lines of leading context before each match.
See also the
.Fl A
and
.Fl C
options.
.It Fl b
Each output line is preceded by its position (in bytes) in the file.
If option
.Fl o
is also specified, the position of the matched pattern is displayed.
.It Fl C Ns Oo Ar num Oc , Fl -context Ns Op = Ns Ar num
Print
.Ar num
lines of leading and trailing context surrounding each match.
The default is 2 and is equivalent to
.Fl A
.Ar 2
.Fl B
.Ar 2 .
Note:
no whitespace may be given between the option and its argument.
.It Fl c
Only a count of selected lines is written to standard output.
.It Fl E
Interpret
.Ar pattern
as an extended regular expression
(i.e. force
.Nm grep
to behave as
.Nm egrep ) .
.It Fl e Ar pattern
Specify a pattern used during the search of the input:
an input line is selected if it matches any of the specified patterns.
This option is most useful when multiple
.Fl e
options are used to specify multiple patterns,
or when a pattern begins with a dash
.Pq Sq - .
.It Fl F
Interpret
.Ar pattern
as a set of fixed strings
(i.e. force
.Nm grep
to behave as
.Nm fgrep ) .
.It Fl f Ar file
Read one or more newline separated patterns from
.Ar file .
Empty pattern lines match every input line.
Newlines are not considered part of a pattern.
If
.Ar file
is empty, nothing is matched.
.It Fl G
Interpret
.Ar pattern
as a basic regular expression
(i.e. force
.Nm grep
to behave as traditional
.Nm grep ) .
.It Fl H
Always print filename headers
.Pq i.e. filenames
with output lines.
.It Fl h
Never print filename headers
.Pq i.e. filenames
with output lines.
.It Fl I
Ignore binary files.
.It Fl i
Perform case insensitive matching.
By default,
.Nm grep
is case sensitive.
.It Fl L
Only the names of files not containing selected lines are written to
standard output.
Pathnames are listed once per file searched.
If the standard input is searched, the string
.Dq (standard input)
is written.
.It Fl l
Only the names of files containing selected lines are written to
standard output.
.Nm grep
will only search a file until a match has been found,
making searches potentially less expensive.
Pathnames are listed once per file searched.
If the standard input is searched, the string
.Dq (standard input)
is written.
.It Fl m Ar num
Stop after finding at least one match on
.Ar num
different lines.
.It Fl n
Each output line is preceded by its relative line number in the file,
starting at line 1.
The line number counter is reset for each file processed.
This option is ignored if
.Fl c ,
.Fl L ,
.Fl l ,
or
.Fl q
is
specified.
.It Fl o
Print each match, but only the match, not the entire line.
.It Fl q
Quiet mode:
suppress normal output.
.Nm grep
will only search a file until a match has been found,
making searches potentially less expensive.
.It Fl R
Recursively search subdirectories listed.
If no
.Ar file
is given,
.Nm
searches the current working directory.
.It Fl s
Silent mode.
Nonexistent and unreadable files are ignored
(i.e. their error messages are suppressed).
.It Fl U
Search binary files, but do not attempt to print them.
.It Fl V
Display version information.
All other options are ignored.
.It Fl v
Selected lines are those
.Em not
matching any of the specified patterns.
.It Fl w
The expression is searched for as a word (as if surrounded by
.Sq [[:<:]]
and
.Sq [[:>:]] ;
see
.Xr re_format 7 ) .
.It Fl x
Only input lines selected against an entire fixed string or regular
expression are considered to be matching lines.
.It Fl Z
Force
.Nm grep
to behave as
.Nm zgrep .
.It Fl -binary-files Ns = Ns Ar value
Controls searching and printing of binary files.
Options are
.Ar binary ,
the default: search binary files but do not print them;
.Ar without-match :
do not search binary files;
and
.Ar text :
treat all files as text.
.It Fl -label Ns = Ns Ar name
Print
.Ar name
instead of the filename before lines.
.It Fl -line-buffered
Force output to be line buffered.
By default, output is line buffered when standard output is a terminal
and block buffered otherwise.
.It Fl -null
Output a zero byte instead of the character that normally follows a
file name.
This option makes the output unambiguous, even in the presence of file
names containing unusual characters like newlines.
This is similar to the
.Fl print0
primary in
.Xr find 1 .
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
The
.Nm grep
utility exits with one of the following values:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
.It Li 0
One or more lines were selected.
.It Li 1
No lines were selected.
.It Li >1
An error occurred.
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
To find all occurrences of the word
.Sq patricia
in a file:
.Pp
.Dl $ grep 'patricia' myfile
.Pp
To find all occurrences of the pattern
.Ql .Pp
at the beginning of a line:
.Pp
.Dl $ grep '^\e.Pp' myfile
.Pp
The apostrophes ensure the entire expression is evaluated by
.Nm grep
instead of by the user's shell.
The caret
.Ql ^
matches the null string at the beginning of a line,
and the
.Ql \e
escapes the
.Ql \&. ,
which would otherwise match any character.
.Pp
To find all lines in a file which do not contain the words
.Sq foo
or
.Sq bar :
.Pp
.Dl $ grep -v -e 'foo' -e 'bar' myfile
.Pp
A simple example of an extended regular expression:
.Pp
.Dl $ egrep '19|20|25' calendar
.Pp
Peruses the file
.Sq calendar
looking for either 19, 20, or 25.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ed 1 ,
.Xr ex 1 ,
.Xr gzip 1 ,
.Xr sed 1 ,
.Xr re_format 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification.
.Pp
The flags
.Op Fl AaBbCGHhILmoRUVwZ
are extensions to that specification, and the behaviour of the
.Fl f
flag when used with an empty pattern file is left undefined.
.Pp
All long options are provided for compatibility with
GNU versions of this utility.
.Pp
Historic versions of the
.Nm grep
utility also supported the flags
.Op Fl ruy .
This implementation supports those options;
however, their use is strongly discouraged.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm grep
command first appeared in
.At v4 .