#Bash 的 grep 命令
grep [OPTION]... PATTERNS [FILE]...
功能
搜索文件中匹配的行。
类型
可执行文件(/usr/bin/grep)。
参数
OPTION选项:-E,--extended-regexp- 使用扩展正则(EREs)-F,--fixed-strings- 不使用正则,PATTERNS试做普通字符串-G,--basic-regexp- 使用基本正则(BRGs);默认-P,--perl-regexp- 使用 Perl 正则(PCREs)-e PATTERNS,--regexp=PATTERNS- 指定正则表达式,可以多次使用此选项指定多个表达式-f FILE,--file=FILE- 从FILE文件中获取正则表达式,每行表示一个正则表达式-i,--ignore-case- 忽略大小写--no-ignore-case- 不要忽略大小写-v,--invert-match- 反转匹配(选择不匹配的行)-w,--word-regexp- 仅选择匹配完整单词的行-x,--line-regexp- 仅选择匹配整行的行-c,--count- 只显示各个文件匹配的行数--color[=WHEN],--colour[=WHEN]- 何时显示彩色;取值为:never,always, 或auto-L,--files-without-match- 只显示无匹配行的文件名-l,--files-with-matches- 只显示有匹配行的文件名-m NUM,--max-count=NUM- 最多匹配NUM行-o,--only-matching- 只显示匹配的部分,而非匹配的行-q,--quiet, --silent- 不打印任何内容,仅通过返回值返回是(0)否(非 0)存在匹配-s,--no-messages- 忽略文件不存在或不可读的错误-b,--byte-offset- 在每行输出前打印从 0 开始字节偏移量-H,--with-filename- 打印文件名;默认-h,--no-filename- 不打印文件名--label=LABEL- 将来自标准输入的数据当作来自LABEL文件-n,--line-number- 打印从 1 开始的行号-T,--initial-tab- 确保打印行的第一个字符在制表位上-Z,--null- 文件名后跟空字符(\0)代替原本的字符(通常是:或\n)-A NUM,--after-context=NUM- 打印匹配行之后的NUM行-B NUM,--before-context=NUM- 打印匹配行之前的NUM行-C NUM,-NUM,--context=NUM- 打印匹配行之前和之后各NUM行--group-separator=SEP- 使用-A,-B,-C打印多行时,使用SEP分隔不同的匹配;默认为----no-group-separator- 使用-A,-B,-C打印多行时,不进行分隔-a,--text- 将二进制文件试做文本文件;等价于--binary-files=text--binary-files=TYPE- 将二进制文件视作TYPE类型的文件binary- 忽略并警告;默认text- 视作文本文件进行匹配without-match- 忽略
-D ACTION,--devices=ACTION- 遇到设备文件时进行的操作read- 当作普通文件读取并匹配skip- 跳过
-d ACTION,--directories=ACTION- 遇到目录文件时进行的操作read- 当作普通文件读取并匹配skip- 跳过recurse- 递归读取目录中的所有文件
--exclude=GLOB- 文件名以通配符模式匹配GLOB时,跳过该文件--exclude-from=FILE- 文件名以通配符模式匹配FILE中的任意行时,跳过该文件--exclude-dir=GLOB- 文件名以通配符模式匹配GLOB时,跳过该目录-I- 忽略二进制文件;等价于--binary-files=without-match--include=GLOB- 文件名以通配符模式匹配GLOB时,包含该文件;跳过其它文件-r,--recursive- 递归搜索目录;等价于--directories=recurse-R,--dereference-recursive- 递归搜索目录,并跟踪符号链接--line-buffered- 输出时使用行缓冲-U,--binary- 将文件视作二进制文件-z,--null-data- 以空字符(\0)作为行的结尾,而不是换行符(\n)--help- 显示当前帮助--version- 显示版本
PATTERNS- 正则表达式FILE- 文件列表;可以是目录- 如果此参数设为
-则读取标准输入 - 如果省略此参数,则递归搜索当前工作目录
- 如果此参数设为
#正则表达式
grep 主要支持三种风格的正则:基本正则 (BRE - Basic Regular Expression)、扩展正则 (ERE - Extended Regular Expression) 和 Perl 正则 (PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions)。
核心差异对比
| 特性 | 基本正则 (BRE) | 扩展正则 (ERE) | Perl 正则 (PCRE) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 选项 | 无 (默认) | -E | -P |
次数匹配 {n,m} | \{n,m\} | {n,m} | {n,m} |
分组 () | \(\) | () | () |
或运算 | | \| | | | | |
1次或多次 + | \+ | + | + |
0次或1次 ? | \? | ? | ? |
| 预定义类 (如 \d) | 不支持 | 不支持 | 支持 |
| 非贪婪匹配 | 不支持 | 不支持 | 支持 |
#基本正则表达式
这是 grep 默认使用的模式。它的原则是“尽量把字符当成普通文本”,因此很多特殊元字符需要通过反斜杠 \ 转义后才具有特殊含义。
?,+,{,|,(,)这些符号在 BRE 中被视为普通字符。- 如果要使用它们的正则功能,必须转义:
\?,\+,\{,\|,\(。
#扩展正则表达式
ERE 简化了语法,去掉了大部分反斜杠。它认为这些特殊符号“天生”就应该是功能符号。
- 使用
-E选项开启 ?,+,{,|,(,)直接作为正则的元字符使用,无需转义。- 如果要将它们当作普通字符,必须转义:
\?,\+,\{,\|,\(。
#Perl 正则表达式
这是最强大的正则风格。它不仅包含 ERE 的所有功能,还加入了许多高级特性(如环视、非贪婪匹配等)。
- 使用
-P选项开启 - 支持特殊的预定义字符集,如
\d(数字),\w(字母数字下划线),\s(空白符)。 - 支持非贪婪模式(在量词后加
?)。
| 字符 | 描述 |
|---|---|
| \ | 将下一个字符标记为一个特殊字符(File Format Escape,清单见本表)、或一个原义字符(Identity Escape,有“^$()*+?.[{|\”共计12个)、或一个向后引用(backreferences)、或一个八进制转义符。例如,“n”匹配字符“n”。“\n”匹配一个换行符。序列“\”匹配“\”而“(”则匹配“(”。 |
| ^ | 匹配输入字符串的开始位置。如果设置了RegExp对象的Multiline属性,^也匹配“\n”或“\r”之后的位置。 |
| $ | 匹配输入字符串的结束位置。如果设置了RegExp对象的Multiline属性,$也匹配“\n”或“\r”之前的位置。 |
| * | 匹配前面的子表达式零次或多次。例如,zo*能匹配“z”、“zo”以及“zoo”。*等价于{0,}。 |
| + | 匹配前面的子表达式一次或多次。例如,“zo+”能匹配“zo”以及“zoo”,但不能匹配“z”。+等价于{1,}。 |
| ? | 匹配前面的子表达式零次或一次。例如,“do(es)?”可以匹配“does”中的“do”和“does”。?等价于{0,1}。 |
| {n} | n是一个非负整数。匹配确定的n次。例如,“o{2}”不能匹配“Bob”中的“o”,但是能匹配“food”中的两个o。 |
| {n,} | n是一个非负整数。至少匹配n次。例如,“o{2,}”不能匹配“Bob”中的“o”,但能匹配“foooood”中的所有o。“o{1,}”等价于“o+”。“o{0,}”则等价于“o*”。 |
| {n,m} | m和n均为非负整数,其中n<=m。最少匹配n次且最多匹配m次。例如,“o{1,3}”将匹配“fooooood”中的前三个o。“o{0,1}”等价于“o?”。请注意在逗号和两个数之间不能有空格。 |
| ? | 非贪心量化(Non-greedy quantifiers):当该字符紧跟在任何一个其他重复修饰符(*,+,?,{n},{n,},{n,m})后面时,匹配模式是非贪婪的。非贪婪模式尽可能少的匹配所搜索的字符串,而默认的贪婪模式则尽可能多的匹配所搜索的字符串。例如,对于字符串“oooo”,“o+?”将匹配单个“o”,而“o+”将匹配所有“o”。 |
| . | 匹配除“\r”“\n”之外的任何单个字符。要匹配包括“\r”“\n”在内的任何字符,请使用像“(.|\r|\n)”的模式。 |
| (pattern) | 匹配pattern并获取这一匹配的子字符串。该子字符串用于向后引用。所获取的匹配可以从产生的Matches集合得到,在VBScript中使用SubMatches集合,在JScript中则使用 |
| (?:pattern) | 匹配pattern但不获取匹配的子字符串(shy groups),也就是说这是一个非获取匹配,不存储匹配的子字符串用于向后引用。这在使用或字符“(|)”来组合一个模式的各个部分是很有用。例如“industr(?:y |
| (?=pattern) | 正向肯定预查(look ahead positive assert),在任何匹配pattern的字符串开始处匹配查找字符串。这是一个非获取匹配,也就是说,该匹配不需要获取供以后使用。例如,“Windows(?=95|98|NT|2000)”能匹配“Windows2000”中的“Windows”,但不能匹配“Windows3.1”中的“Windows”。预查不消耗字符,也就是说,在一个匹配发生后,在最后一次匹配之后立即开始下一次匹配的搜索,而不是从包含预查的字符之后开始。 |
| (?!pattern) | 正向否定预查(negative assert),在任何不匹配pattern的字符串开始处匹配查找字符串。这是一个非获取匹配,也就是说,该匹配不需要获取供以后使用。例如“Windows(?!95|98|NT|2000)”能匹配“Windows3.1”中的“Windows”,但不能匹配“Windows2000”中的“Windows”。预查不消耗字符,也就是说,在一个匹配发生后,在最后一次匹配之后立即开始下一次匹配的搜索,而不是从包含预查的字符之后开始 |
| (?<=pattern) | 反向(look behind)肯定预查,与正向肯定预查类似,只是方向相反。例如,“(?<=95|98|NT|2000)Windows”能匹配“2000Windows”中的“Windows”,但不能匹配“3.1Windows”中的“Windows”。 |
| (?<!pattern) | 反向否定预查,与正向否定预查类似,只是方向相反。例如“(?<!95|98|NT|2000)Windows”能匹配“3.1Windows”中的“Windows”,但不能匹配“2000Windows”中的“Windows”。 |
| x|y | 没有包围在()里,其范围是整个正则表达式。例如,“z|food”能匹配“z”或“food”。“(?:z|f)ood”则匹配“zood”或“food”。 |
| [xyz] | 字符集合(character class)。匹配所包含的任意一个字符。例如,“[abc]”可以匹配“plain”中的“a”。特殊字符仅有反斜线\保持特殊含义,用于转义字符。其它特殊字符如星号、加号、各种括号等均作为普通字符。脱字符^如果出现在首位则表示负值字符集合;如果出现在字符串中间就仅作为普通字符。连字符 - 如果出现在字符串中间表示字符范围描述;如果如果出现在首位(或末尾)则仅作为普通字符。右方括号应转义出现,也可以作为首位字符出现。 |
| [^xyz] | 排除型字符集合(negated character classes)。匹配未列出的任意字符。例如,“[^abc]”可以匹配“plain”中的“plin”。 |
| [a-z] | 字符范围。匹配在Unicode编码表指定范围内的任意字符。例如,“[a-z]”可以匹配“a”到“z”范围内的任意小写字母字符。 |
| [^a-z] | 排除型的字符范围。匹配任何不在Unicode编码表指定范围内的任意字符。例如,“[^a-z]”可以匹配任何不在“a”到“z”范围内的任意字符。 |
| [:name:] | 增加命名字符类(named character class)[注 1]中的字符到表达式。只能用于方括号表达式。 |
| [=elt=] | 增加当前locale下排序(collate)等价于字符“elt”的元素。例如,[=a=]可能会增加ä、á、à、ă、ắ、ằ、ẵ、ẳ、â、ấ、ầ、ẫ、ẩ、ǎ、å、ǻ、ä、ǟ、ã、ȧ、ǡ、ą、ā、ả、ȁ、ȃ、ạ、ặ、ậ、ḁ、ⱥ、ᶏ、ɐ、ɑ 。只能用于方括号表达式。 |
| [.elt.] | 增加排序元素(collation element)elt到表达式中。这是因为某些排序元素由多个字符组成。例如,29个字母表的西班牙语, "CH"作为单个字母排在字母C之后,因此会产生如此排序“cinco, credo, chispa”。只能用于方括号表达式。 |
| \b | 匹配一个单词边界,也就是指单词和空格间的位置。例如,“er\b”可以匹配“never”中的“er”,但不能匹配“verb”中的“er”。 |
| \B | 匹配非单词边界。“er\B”能匹配“verb”中的“er”,但不能匹配“never”中的“er”。 |
| \cx | 匹配由x指明的控制字符。x的值必须为A-Z或a-z之一。否则,将c视为一个原义的“c”字符。控制字符的值等于x的值最低5比特(即对3210进制的余数)。例如,\cM匹配一个Control-M或回车符。\ca等效于\u0001, \cb等效于\u0002, 等等... |
| \d | 匹配一个数字字符。等价于[0-9]。注意Unicode正则表达式会匹配全角数字字符。 |
| \D | 匹配一个非数字字符。等价于[^0-9]。 |
| \f | 匹配一个换页符。等价于\x0c和\cL。 |
| \n | 匹配一个换行符。等价于\x0a和\cJ。 |
| \r | 匹配一个回车符。等价于\x0d和\cM。 |
| \s | 匹配任何空白字符,包括空格、制表符、换页符等等。等价于[ \f\n\r\t\v]。注意Unicode正则表达式会匹配全角空格符。 |
| \S | 匹配任何非空白字符。等价于[^ \f\n\r\t\v]。 |
| \t | 匹配一个制表符。等价于\x09和\cI。 |
| \v | 匹配一个垂直制表符。等价于\x0b和\cK。 |
| \w | 匹配包括下划线的任何单词字符。等价于“[A-Za-z0-9_]”。注意Unicode正则表达式会匹配中文字符。 |
| \W | 匹配任何非单词字符。等价于“[^A-Za-z0-9_]”。 |
| \xnn | 十六进制转义字符序列。匹配两个十六进制数字nn表示的字符。例如,“\x41”匹配“A”。“\x041”则等价于“\x04&1”。正则表达式中可以使用ASCII编码。. |
| \num | 向后引用(back-reference)一个子字符串(substring),该子字符串与正则表达式的第num个用括号围起来的捕捉群(capture group)子表达式(subexpression)匹配。其中num是从1开始的十进制正整数,其上限可能是9[注 2]、31[注 3]、99甚至无限[注 4]。例如:“(.)\1”匹配两个连续的相同字符。 |
| \n | 标识一个八进制转义值或一个向后引用。如果\n之前至少n个获取的子表达式,则n为向后引用。否则,如果n为八进制数字(0-7),则n为一个八进制转义值。 |
| \nm | 3位八进制数字,标识一个八进制转义值或一个向后引用。如果\nm之前至少有nm个获得子表达式,则nm为向后引用。如果\nm之前至少有n个获取,则n为一个后跟文字m的向后引用。如果前面的条件都不满足,若n和m均为八进制数字(0-7),则\nm将匹配八进制转义值nm。 |
| \nml | 如果n为八进制数字(0-3),且m和l均为八进制数字(0-7),则匹配八进制转义值nml。 |
| \un | Unicode转义字符序列。其中n是一个用四个十六进制数字表示的Unicode字符。例如,\u00A9匹配著作权符号(©)。 |
#示例
基本示例
$ grep "error" log.txt # 在 log.txt 中搜索含有 "error" 的行
$ grep -i "error" log.txt # 忽略大小写
$ grep -n "error" log.txt # 显示行号
$ grep -c "error" log.txt # 统计匹配的行数
$ grep -v "error" log.txt # 在 log.txt 中搜索不含 "error" 的行
递归搜索目录
$ grep "TODO" -r ./src # 在 ./src 目录中搜索包含 "TODO" 的行,不跟踪符号链接
$ grep "error" -R /var/log # 在 /var/log 目录中搜索包含 "error" 的行,并且跟踪符号链接
显示上下文
$ grep "TODO" -A 10 ./src # 现在匹配的行以及之后的 10 行
$ grep "TODO" -B 10 ./src # 现在匹配的行以及之前的 10 行
$ grep "TODO" -C 10 ./src # 现在匹配的行以及前后各 10 行
正则表达式
$ grep "^#" file.txt # 搜索以 # 开头的行
$ grep -E "error|fail|panic" log.txt # 使用扩展正则,“或”关系不需要转义
$ grep -E "[0-9]+" file.txt # 匹配十进制数字串
$ grep -P "[\w.-]+@[\w.-]+\.\w+" file.txt # 匹配邮箱地址,使用 Perl 正则,支持 \w 等预定义字符集
信息提取
$ grep -o "[0-9]\+" file.txt # 只输出匹配的部分
$ grep -oP "(?<=:)\d+" url.txt # 提取端口号
$ grep -oP "(?<=user=)\w+" log.txt # 提取 user= 的值
#推荐阅读
#手册
GREP(1) User Commands GREP(1)
NAME
grep, egrep, fgrep, rgrep - print lines that match patterns
SYNOPSIS
grep [OPTION...] PATTERNS [FILE...]
grep [OPTION...] -e PATTERNS ... [FILE...]
grep [OPTION...] -f PATTERN_FILE ... [FILE...]
DESCRIPTION
grep searches for PATTERNS in each FILE. PATTERNS is one or more
patterns separated by newline characters, and grep prints each line
that matches a pattern. Typically PATTERNS should be quoted when grep
is used in a shell command.
A FILE of “-” stands for standard input. If no FILE is given,
recursive searches examine the working directory, and nonrecursive
searches read standard input.
Debian also includes the variant programs egrep, fgrep and rgrep.
These programs are the same as grep -E, grep -F, and grep -r,
respectively. These variants are deprecated upstream, but Debian
provides for backward compatibility. For portability reasons, it is
recommended to avoid the variant programs, and use grep with the
related option instead.
OPTIONS
Generic Program Information
--help Output a usage message and exit.
-V, --version
Output the version number of grep and exit.
Pattern Syntax
-E, --extended-regexp
Interpret PATTERNS as extended regular expressions (EREs, see
below).
-F, --fixed-strings
Interpret PATTERNS as fixed strings, not regular expressions.
-G, --basic-regexp
Interpret PATTERNS as basic regular expressions (BREs, see
below). This is the default.
-P, --perl-regexp
Interpret PATTERNS as Perl-compatible regular expressions
(PCREs). This option is experimental when combined with the -z
(--null-data) option, and grep -P may warn of unimplemented
features.
Matching Control
-e PATTERNS, --regexp=PATTERNS
Use PATTERNS as the patterns. If this option is used multiple
times or is combined with the -f (--file) option, search for all
patterns given. This option can be used to protect a pattern
beginning with “-”.
-f FILE, --file=FILE
Obtain patterns from FILE, one per line. If this option is used
multiple times or is combined with the -e (--regexp) option,
search for all patterns given. The empty file contains zero
patterns, and therefore matches nothing. If FILE is - , read
patterns from standard input.
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore case distinctions in patterns and input data, so that
characters that differ only in case match each other.
--no-ignore-case
Do not ignore case distinctions in patterns and input data.
This is the default. This option is useful for passing to shell
scripts that already use -i, to cancel its effects because the
two options override each other.
-v, --invert-match
Invert the sense of matching, to select non-matching lines.
-w, --word-regexp
Select only those lines containing matches that form whole
words. The test is that the matching substring must either be
at the beginning of the line, or preceded by a non-word
constituent character. Similarly, it must be either at the end
of the line or followed by a non-word constituent character.
Word-constituent characters are letters, digits, and the
underscore. This option has no effect if -x is also specified.
-x, --line-regexp
Select only those matches that exactly match the whole line.
For a regular expression pattern, this is like parenthesizing
the pattern and then surrounding it with ^ and $.
General Output Control
-c, --count
Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching lines
for each input file. With the -v, --invert-match option (see
above), count non-matching lines.
--color[=WHEN], --colour[=WHEN]
Surround the matched (non-empty) strings, matching lines,
context lines, file names, line numbers, byte offsets, and
separators (for fields and groups of context lines) with escape
sequences to display them in color on the terminal. The colors
are defined by the environment variable GREP_COLORS. WHEN is
never, always, or auto.
-L, --files-without-match
Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input
file from which no output would normally have been printed.
-l, --files-with-matches
Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input
file from which output would normally have been printed.
Scanning each input file stops upon first match.
-m NUM, --max-count=NUM
Stop reading a file after NUM matching lines. If NUM is zero,
grep stops right away without reading input. A NUM of -1 is
treated as infinity and grep does not stop; this is the default.
If the input is standard input from a regular file, and NUM
matching lines are output, grep ensures that the standard input
is positioned to just after the last matching line before
exiting, regardless of the presence of trailing context lines.
This enables a calling process to resume a search. When grep
stops after NUM matching lines, it outputs any trailing context
lines. When the -c or --count option is also used, grep does
not output a count greater than NUM. When the -v or
--invert-match option is also used, grep stops after outputting
NUM non-matching lines.
-o, --only-matching
Print only the matched (non-empty) parts of a matching line,
with each such part on a separate output line.
-q, --quiet, --silent
Quiet; do not write anything to standard output. Exit
immediately with zero status if any match is found, even if an
error was detected. Also see the -s or --no-messages option.
-s, --no-messages
Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files.
Output Line Prefix Control
-b, --byte-offset
Print the 0-based byte offset within the input file before each
line of output. If -o (--only-matching) is specified, print the
offset of the matching part itself.
-H, --with-filename
Print the file name for each match. This is the default when
there is more than one file to search. This is a GNU extension.
-h, --no-filename
Suppress the prefixing of file names on output. This is the
default when there is only one file (or only standard input) to
search.
--label=LABEL
Display input actually coming from standard input as input
coming from file LABEL. This can be useful for commands that
transform a file's contents before searching, e.g., gzip -cd
foo.gz | grep --label=foo -H 'some pattern'. See also the -H
option.
-n, --line-number
Prefix each line of output with the 1-based line number within
its input file.
-T, --initial-tab
Make sure that the first character of actual line content lies
on a tab stop, so that the alignment of tabs looks normal. This
is useful with options that prefix their output to the actual
content: -H,-n, and -b. In order to improve the probability
that lines from a single file will all start at the same column,
this also causes the line number and byte offset (if present) to
be printed in a minimum size field width.
-Z, --null
Output a zero byte (the ASCII NUL character) instead of the
character that normally follows a file name. For example, grep
-lZ outputs a zero byte after each file name instead of the
usual newline. This option makes the output unambiguous, even
in the presence of file names containing unusual characters like
newlines. This option can be used with commands like find
-print0, perl -0, sort -z, and xargs -0 to process arbitrary
file names, even those that contain newline characters.
Context Line Control
-A NUM, --after-context=NUM
Print NUM lines of trailing context after matching lines.
Places a line containing a group separator (--) between
contiguous groups of matches. With the -o or --only-matching
option, this has no effect and a warning is given.
-B NUM, --before-context=NUM
Print NUM lines of leading context before matching lines.
Places a line containing a group separator (--) between
contiguous groups of matches. With the -o or --only-matching
option, this has no effect and a warning is given.
-C NUM, -NUM, --context=NUM
Print NUM lines of output context. Places a line containing a
group separator (--) between contiguous groups of matches. With
the -o or --only-matching option, this has no effect and a
warning is given.
--group-separator=SEP
When -A, -B, or -C are in use, print SEP instead of -- between
groups of lines.
--no-group-separator
When -A, -B, or -C are in use, do not print a separator between
groups of lines.
File and Directory Selection
-a, --text
Process a binary file as if it were text; this is equivalent to
the --binary-files=text option.
--binary-files=TYPE
If a file's data or metadata indicate that the file contains
binary data, assume that the file is of type TYPE. Non-text
bytes indicate binary data; these are either output bytes that
are improperly encoded for the current locale, or null input
bytes when the -z option is not given.
By default, TYPE is binary, and grep suppresses output after
null input binary data is discovered, and suppresses output
lines that contain improperly encoded data. When some output is
suppressed, grep follows any output with a message to standard
error saying that a binary file matches.
If TYPE is without-match, when grep discovers null input binary
data it assumes that the rest of the file does not match; this
is equivalent to the -I option.
If TYPE is text, grep processes a binary file as if it were
text; this is equivalent to the -a option.
When type is binary, grep may treat non-text bytes as line
terminators even without the -z option. This means choosing
binary versus text can affect whether a pattern matches a file.
For example, when type is binary the pattern q$ might match q
immediately followed by a null byte, even though this is not
matched when type is text. Conversely, when type is binary the
pattern . (period) might not match a null byte.
Warning: The -a option might output binary garbage, which can
have nasty side effects if the output is a terminal and if the
terminal driver interprets some of it as commands. On the other
hand, when reading files whose text encodings are unknown, it
can be helpful to use -a or to set LC_ALL='C' in the
environment, in order to find more matches even if the matches
are unsafe for direct display.
-D ACTION, --devices=ACTION
If an input file is a device, FIFO or socket, use ACTION to
process it. By default, ACTION is read, which means that
devices are read just as if they were ordinary files. If ACTION
is skip, devices are silently skipped.
-d ACTION, --directories=ACTION
If an input file is a directory, use ACTION to process it. By
default, ACTION is read, i.e., read directories just as if they
were ordinary files. If ACTION is skip, silently skip
directories. If ACTION is recurse, read all files under each
directory, recursively, following symbolic links only if they
are on the command line. This is equivalent to the -r option.
--exclude=GLOB
Skip any command-line file with a name suffix that matches the
pattern GLOB, using wildcard matching; a name suffix is either
the whole name, or a trailing part that starts with a non-slash
character immediately after a slash (/) in the name. When
searching recursively, skip any subfile whose base name matches
GLOB; the base name is the part after the last slash. A pattern
can use *, ?, and [...] as wildcards, and \ to quote a wildcard
or backslash character literally.
--exclude-from=FILE
Skip files whose base name matches any of the file-name globs
read from FILE (using wildcard matching as described under
--exclude).
--exclude-dir=GLOB
Skip any command-line directory with a name suffix that matches
the pattern GLOB. When searching recursively, skip any
subdirectory whose base name matches GLOB. Ignore any redundant
trailing slashes in GLOB.
-I Process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data;
this is equivalent to the --binary-files=without-match option.
--include=GLOB
Search only files whose base name matches GLOB (using wildcard
matching as described under --exclude). If contradictory
--include and --exclude options are given, the last matching one
wins. If no --include or --exclude options match, a file is
included unless the first such option is --include.
-r, --recursive
Read all files under each directory, recursively, following
symbolic links only if they are on the command line. Note that
if no file operand is given, grep searches the working
directory. This is equivalent to the -d recurse option.
-R, --dereference-recursive
Read all files under each directory, recursively. Follow all
symbolic links, unlike -r.
Other Options
--line-buffered
Use line buffering on output. This can cause a performance
penalty.
-U, --binary
Treat the file(s) as binary. By default, under MS-DOS and MS-
Windows, grep guesses whether a file is text or binary as
described for the --binary-files option. If grep decides the
file is a text file, it strips the CR characters from the
original file contents (to make regular expressions with ^ and $
work correctly). Specifying -U overrules this guesswork,
causing all files to be read and passed to the matching
mechanism verbatim; if the file is a text file with CR/LF pairs
at the end of each line, this will cause some regular
expressions to fail. This option has no effect on platforms
other than MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
-z, --null-data
Treat input and output data as sequences of lines, each
terminated by a zero byte (the ASCII NUL character) instead of a
newline. Like the -Z or --null option, this option can be used
with commands like sort -z to process arbitrary file names.
REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings.
Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic
expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
grep understands three different versions of regular expression syntax:
“basic” (BRE), “extended” (ERE) and “perl” (PCRE). In GNU grep, basic
and extended regular expressions are merely different notations for the
same pattern-matching functionality. In other implementations, basic
regular expressions are ordinarily less powerful than extended, though
occasionally it is the other way around. The following description
applies to extended regular expressions; differences for basic regular
expressions are summarized afterwards. Perl-compatible regular
expressions have different functionality, and are documented in
pcre2syntax(3) and pcre2pattern(3), but work only if PCRE support is
enabled.
The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match
a single character. Most characters, including all letters and digits,
are regular expressions that match themselves. Any meta-character with
special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
The period . matches any single character. It is unspecified whether
it matches an encoding error.
Character Classes and Bracket Expressions
A bracket expression is a list of characters enclosed by [ and ]. It
matches any single character in that list. If the first character of
the list is the caret ^ then it matches any character not in the list;
it is unspecified whether it matches an encoding error. For example,
the regular expression [0123456789] matches any single digit.
Within a bracket expression, a range expression consists of two
characters separated by a hyphen. It matches any single character that
sorts between the two characters, inclusive, using the locale's
collating sequence and character set. For example, in the default C
locale, [a-d] is equivalent to [abcd]. Many locales sort characters in
dictionary order, and in these locales [a-d] is typically not
equivalent to [abcd]; it might be equivalent to [aBbCcDd], for example.
To obtain the traditional interpretation of bracket expressions, you
can use the C locale by setting the LC_ALL environment variable to the
value C.
Finally, certain named classes of characters are predefined within
bracket expressions, as follows. Their names are self explanatory, and
they are [:alnum:], [:alpha:], [:blank:], [:cntrl:], [:digit:],
[:graph:], [:lower:], [:print:], [:punct:], [:space:], [:upper:], and
[:xdigit:]. For example, [[:alnum:]] means the character class of
numbers and letters in the current locale. In the C locale and ASCII
character set encoding, this is the same as [0-9A-Za-z]. (Note that
the brackets in these class names are part of the symbolic names, and
must be included in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket
expression.) Most meta-characters lose their special meaning inside
bracket expressions. To include a literal ] place it first in the
list. Similarly, to include a literal ^ place it anywhere but first.
Finally, to include a literal - place it last.
Anchoring
The caret ^ and the dollar sign $ are meta-characters that respectively
match the empty string at the beginning and end of a line.
The Backslash Character and Special Expressions
The symbols \< and \> respectively match the empty string at the
beginning and end of a word. The symbol \b matches the empty string at
the edge of a word, and \B matches the empty string provided it's not
at the edge of a word. The symbol \w is a synonym for [_[:alnum:]] and
\W is a synonym for [^_[:alnum:]].
Repetition
A regular expression may be followed by one of several repetition
operators:
? The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
* The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
+ The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
{n} The preceding item is matched exactly n times.
{n,} The preceding item is matched n or more times.
{,m} The preceding item is matched at most m times. This is a GNU
extension.
{n,m} The preceding item is matched at least n times, but not more
than m times.
Concatenation
Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular
expression matches any string formed by concatenating two substrings
that respectively match the concatenated expressions.
Alternation
Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator |; the
resulting regular expression matches any string matching either
alternate expression.
Precedence
Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes
precedence over alternation. A whole expression may be enclosed in
parentheses to override these precedence rules and form a
subexpression.
Back-references and Subexpressions
The back-reference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring
previously matched by the nth parenthesized subexpression of the
regular expression.
Basic vs Extended Regular Expressions
In basic regular expressions the meta-characters ?, +, {, |, (, and )
lose their special meaning; instead use the backslashed versions \?,
\+, \{, \|, \(, and \).
EXIT STATUS
Normally the exit status is 0 if a line is selected, 1 if no lines were
selected, and 2 if an error occurred. However, if the -q or --quiet or
--silent is used and a line is selected, the exit status is 0 even if
an error occurred.
ENVIRONMENT
The behavior of grep is affected by the following environment
variables.
The locale for category LC_foo is specified by examining the three
environment variables LC_ALL, LC_foo, LANG, in that order. The first
of these variables that is set specifies the locale. For example, if
LC_ALL is not set, but LC_MESSAGES is set to pt_BR, then the Brazilian
Portuguese locale is used for the LC_MESSAGES category. The C locale
is used if none of these environment variables are set, if the locale
catalog is not installed, or if grep was not compiled with national
language support (NLS). The shell command locale -a lists locales that
are currently available.
GREP_COLORS
Controls how the --color option highlights output. Its value is
a colon-separated list of capabilities that defaults to
ms=01;31:mc=01;31:sl=:cx=:fn=35:ln=32:bn=32:se=36 with the rv
and ne boolean capabilities omitted (i.e., false). Supported
capabilities are as follows.
sl= SGR substring for whole selected lines (i.e., matching
lines when the -v command-line option is omitted, or non-
matching lines when -v is specified). If however the
boolean rv capability and the -v command-line option are
both specified, it applies to context matching lines
instead. The default is empty (i.e., the terminal's
default color pair).
cx= SGR substring for whole context lines (i.e., non-matching
lines when the -v command-line option is omitted, or
matching lines when -v is specified). If however the
boolean rv capability and the -v command-line option are
both specified, it applies to selected non-matching lines
instead. The default is empty (i.e., the terminal's
default color pair).
rv Boolean value that reverses (swaps) the meanings of the
sl= and cx= capabilities when the -v command-line option
is specified. The default is false (i.e., the capability
is omitted).
mt=01;31
SGR substring for matching non-empty text in any matching
line (i.e., a selected line when the -v command-line
option is omitted, or a context line when -v is
specified). Setting this is equivalent to setting both
ms= and mc= at once to the same value. The default is a
bold red text foreground over the current line
background.
ms=01;31
SGR substring for matching non-empty text in a selected
line. (This is only used when the -v command-line option
is omitted.) The effect of the sl= (or cx= if rv)
capability remains active when this kicks in. The
default is a bold red text foreground over the current
line background.
mc=01;31
SGR substring for matching non-empty text in a context
line. (This is only used when the -v command-line option
is specified.) The effect of the cx= (or sl= if rv)
capability remains active when this kicks in. The
default is a bold red text foreground over the current
line background.
fn=35 SGR substring for file names prefixing any content line.
The default is a magenta text foreground over the
terminal's default background.
ln=32 SGR substring for line numbers prefixing any content
line. The default is a green text foreground over the
terminal's default background.
bn=32 SGR substring for byte offsets prefixing any content
line. The default is a green text foreground over the
terminal's default background.
se=36 SGR substring for separators that are inserted between
selected line fields (:), between context line fields,
(-), and between groups of adjacent lines when nonzero
context is specified (--). The default is a cyan text
foreground over the terminal's default background.
ne Boolean value that prevents clearing to the end of line
using Erase in Line (EL) to Right (\33[K) each time a
colorized item ends. This is needed on terminals on
which EL is not supported. It is otherwise useful on
terminals for which the back_color_erase (bce) boolean
terminfo capability does not apply, when the chosen
highlight colors do not affect the background, or when EL
is too slow or causes too much flicker. The default is
false (i.e., the capability is omitted).
Note that boolean capabilities have no =... part. They are
omitted (i.e., false) by default and become true when specified.
See the Select Graphic Rendition (SGR) section in the
documentation of the text terminal that is used for permitted
values and their meaning as character attributes. These
substring values are integers in decimal representation and can
be concatenated with semicolons. grep takes care of assembling
the result into a complete SGR sequence (\33[...m). Common
values to concatenate include 1 for bold, 4 for underline, 5 for
blink, 7 for inverse, 39 for default foreground color, 30 to 37
for foreground colors, 90 to 97 for 16-color mode foreground
colors, 38;5;0 to 38;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color modes
foreground colors, 49 for default background color, 40 to 47 for
background colors, 100 to 107 for 16-color mode background
colors, and 48;5;0 to 48;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color modes
background colors.
LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LANG
These variables specify the locale for the LC_COLLATE category,
which determines the collating sequence used to interpret range
expressions like [a-z].
LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG
These variables specify the locale for the LC_CTYPE category,
which determines the type of characters, e.g., which characters
are whitespace. This category also determines the character
encoding, that is, whether text is encoded in UTF-8, ASCII, or
some other encoding. In the C or POSIX locale, all characters
are encoded as a single byte and every byte is a valid
character.
LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG
These variables specify the locale for the LC_MESSAGES category,
which determines the language that grep uses for messages. The
default C locale uses American English messages.
POSIXLY_CORRECT
If set, grep behaves as POSIX requires; otherwise, grep behaves
more like other GNU programs. POSIX requires that options that
follow file names must be treated as file names; by default,
such options are permuted to the front of the operand list and
are treated as options. Also, POSIX requires that unrecognized
options be diagnosed as “illegal”, but since they are not really
against the law the default is to diagnose them as “invalid”.
NOTES
This man page is maintained only fitfully; the full documentation is
often more up-to-date.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1998-2000, 2002, 2005-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is
NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
BUGS
Reporting Bugs
Email bug reports to the bug-reporting address ⟨bug-grep@gnu.org⟩. An
email archive ⟨https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-grep⟩ and a
bug tracker ⟨https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/pkgreport.cgi?package=grep⟩
are available.
Known Bugs
Large repetition counts in the {n,m} construct may cause grep to use
lots of memory. In addition, certain other obscure regular expressions
require exponential time and space, and may cause grep to run out of
memory.
Back-references are very slow, and may require exponential time.
EXAMPLE
The following example outputs the location and contents of any line
containing “f” and ending in “.c”, within all files in the current di‐
rectory whose names contain “g” and end in “.h”. The -n option outputs
line numbers, the -- argument treats expansions of “*g*.h” starting
with “-” as file names not options, and the empty file /dev/null causes
file names to be output even if only one file name happens to be of the
form “*g*.h”.
$ grep -n -- 'f.*\.c$' *g*.h /dev/null
argmatch.h:1:/* definitions and prototypes for argmatch.c
The only line that matches is line 1 of argmatch.h. Note that the reg‐
ular expression syntax used in the pattern differs from the globbing
syntax that the shell uses to match file names.
SEE ALSO
Regular Manual Pages
awk(1), cmp(1), diff(1), find(1), perl(1), sed(1), sort(1), xargs(1),
read(2), pcre2(3), pcre2syntax(3), pcre2pattern(3), terminfo(5),
glob(7), regex(7)
Full Documentation
A complete manual ⟨https://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/⟩ is avail‐
able. If the info and grep programs are properly installed at your
site, the command
info grep
should give you access to the complete manual.
GNU grep 3.11 2019-12-29 GREP(1)