Search file(s) for specific text.
Syntax
grep options "Search String" [filename]
grep options [-e PATTERN] [FILE...]
grep options [-f FILE] [FILE...]
A simple example:
grep "Needle in a Haystack" /etc/*
Grep searches the named input FILEs (or standard input if no files are named, or the file name - is given) for lines containing a match to the given PATTERN. By default, grep prints the matching lines.
In addition, two variant programs egrep and fgrep are available. Egrep is the same as grep -E. Fgrep is the same as grep -F.
Options
-A NUM
--after-context=NUM
Print NUM lines of trailing context after matching lines.
Places a line containing -- between contiguous groups of matches.
-a
--text
Process a binary file as if it were text; this is equivalent
to the --binary-files=text option.
-B NUM
--before-context=NUM
Print NUM lines of leading context before matching lines.
Places a line containing -- between contiguous groups of matches.
-b
--byte-offset
Print the byte offset within the input file before each line of output.
--colour[=WHEN]
--color[=WHEN]
Surround the matching string with the marker from the GREP_COLOR environment variable.
WHEN can be 'never', 'always', or 'auto' e.g. --color=always
By default the matched text will be colored red.
If grep is made to match several strings, all of the matches will be colored, one exception
is the regex ^ (match beginning of every line), the beginning of a line has no length so will
not be coloued.
So to return all lines and colour only matches: egrep --color=always '^|string1|string2'
-C NUM
--context=NUM
Print NUM lines of output context.
Print num lines of leading and trailing context surrounding each match.
The default is 2 and is equivalent to -A 2 -B 2.
Note: no whitespace may be given between the option and its argument.
-c
--count
Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching lines for each input file.
With the -v, --invert-match option (see below), count non-matching lines.
-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, which means that directories are read just as if they
were ordinary files. If ACTION is skip, directories are silently skipped.
If ACTION is recurse, grep reads all files under each directory, recursively; this
is equivalent to the -R and -r option.
-E
--extended-regexp
Interpret PATTERN as an extended regular expression
-e PATTERN
--regexp=PATTERN
Use PATTERN as the pattern; useful to protect patterns beginning with -
--exclude
If specified, it excludes files matching the given filename pattern from
the search. Note that --exclude patterns take priority over --include patterns,
and if no --include pattern is specified, all files are searched that are not excluded.
Patterns are matched to the full path specified, not only to the filename component.
--exclude-dir
If -R is specified, it excludes directories matching the given filename pattern from
the search. Note that --exclude-dir patterns take priority over --include-dir patterns,
and if no --include-dir pattern is specified, all directories are searched that are not excluded.
-F
--fixed-strings
Interpret PATTERN as a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines,
any of which is to be matched.
-f FILE
--file=FILE
Obtain patterns from FILE, one per line. The empty file contains zero
patterns, and therefore matches nothing.
-G
--basic-regexp
Interpret PATTERN as a basic regular expression This is the default.
-H
--with-filename
Print the filename for each match.
-h
--no-filename
Suppress the prefixing of filenames on output when multiple files are searched.
--help
Output a brief help message.
-I
Process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data; this is
equivalent to the --binary-files=without-match option.
-i
--ignore-case
Ignore case distinctions in both the PATTERN and the input files.
--include
If specified, only files matching the given filename pattern are searched.
Note that --exclude patterns take priority over --include patterns. Patterns are
matched to the full path specified, not only to the filename component.
--include-dir
If -R is specified, only directories matching the given filename pattern are searched.
Note that --exclude-dir patterns take priority over --include-dir patterns.
-J, --bz2decompress
Decompress the bzip2(1) compressed file before looking for the text.
-L
--files-without-match
Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which
no output would normally have been printed. The scanning will stop on the first match.
-l
--files-with-matches
Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which
output would normally have been printed. The scanning will stop on the first match.
--mmap
Use mmap(2) instead of read(2) to read input, which can result in better performance under
some circumstances but can cause undefined behaviour.
-m NUM
--max-count=NUM
Stop reading a file after NUM matching lines.
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.
-n
--line-number
Prefix each line of output with the line number within its input file.
--null Print a zero-byte after the file name.
-O
If -R is specified, follow symbolic links only if they were explicitly listed on the
command line. The default is not to follow symbolic links.
-o
--only-matching
Show only the part of a matching line that matches PATTERN.
-p
If -R is specified, no symbolic links are followed. This is the default.
-q
--quiet
--silent
Quiet mode: suppress normal output. grep will only search a file until a match
has been found, making searches potentially less expensive.
-R
-r
--recursive
Read all files under each directory, recursively
This is equivalent to the -d recurse option.
-s
--no-messages
Silent mode. Nonexistent and unreadable files are ignored
(i.e. their error messages are suppressed).
-U
--binary
Search binary files, but do not attempt to print them.
-V
--version
Display version information and exit.
-v
--invert-match
Selected lines are those not matching any of the specified patterns.
-w
--word-regexp
The expression is searched for as a word
(as if surrounded by '[[:<:]]' and '[[:>:]]'; see re_format(7)).
-x
--line-regexp
Only input lines selected against an entire fixed string or regular expression
are considered to be matching lines.
-y Equivalent to -i. Obsoleted.
-Z
-z
--decompress
Force grep to behave as zgrep.
--binary-files=value
Controls searching and printing of binary files. Options are binary, the
default: search binary files but do not print them; without-match: do not search
binary files; and text: treat all files as text.
--context[=num]
Print num lines of leading and trailing context. The default is 2.
--line-buffered
Force output to be line buffered. By default, output is line buffered
when standard output is a terminal and block buffered otherwise.
If no file arguments are specified, the standard input is used.
Grep stands for: Global Regular Expression Print.
History: grep comes from the ed command to print all lines matching a certain pattern g/re/p where "re" is a "regular expression".
Grep’s behavior can be affected by setting the following environment variables:
GREP_OPTIONS - default options LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG - language for messages LC_CTYPE - foreign characters POSIXLY_CORRECT - Posix behaviour _N_GNU_nonoption_argv_flags_ - ignore an operand see 'info grep' for more
grep exits with one of the following values:
0 One or more lines were selected. 1 No lines were selected. >1 An error occurred - syntax error in pattern, inaccessible input files, or other system error.In other words a failure to find a matching item is reported as an error (1)
The '-v' option can be used to effectively invert the exit status.
Searching an entire hard drive with grep can be very slow, using mdfind to identify files containing text is orders of magnitude faster.
Search the file example.txt, including binary data (-a) for the string 'hunting the snark':
$ sudo grep -a 'hunting the snark' example.txt
Search the whole partition (/disk0), including binary data (-a) for the string 'hunting the snark' return all the lines
starting 25 Before the text found and 50 lines After the matching text found, this can be a way to discover fragments of deleted files:
$ sudo grep -a -B 25 -A 50 'hunting the snark' /dev/disk0> results.txt
Search the file wordlist.txt for any lines that include either 'sco' or 'sca':
$ grep "sc[oa]" wordlist.txt
Search the file wordlist.txt for any lines that don’t include at least one vowel:
$ grep -v [aeiou] wordlist.txt
Search all files in the folder /users/Carmen/ for any files NOT contaning the word 'snark':
$ grep -RL 'snark' /users/Carmen/
Remove lines from invoices.txt if they appear in paid.txt:
$ grep -F -x -v -f paid.txt invoices.txt >paidinvoices.txt
List all the file links in the current folder - in the ouptut of ls each symbolic directory has l permission at the begining of the permission flags, so grep ^l will list only symbolic links:
$ ls -lR | grep ^l
A less cryptic method is to use find . -type l
“The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth” ~ G. C. Lichtenberg
pgrep - List processes by a full or partial name.
awk - Find and Replace text within file(s).
mdfind -
Spotlight search.
tr - Translate, squeeze, and/or delete characters.