5/3/2020 grep Command In Linux / UNIX with complete examples - nixCraft

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How To Use grep Command In Linux / UNIX

Vivek Gite 13 years ago

How do I use grep command on Linux or Apple macOS/OS X? How can I use grep command on Unix operating
systems? Can you give me a simple examples of the grep command?

The grep command is used to search text. It searches the given file for lines containing a match to the given
strings or words. It is one of the most useful commands on Linux and Unix-like system. Let us see how to use grep
on a Linux or Unix like system.

Did you know?

The name, “grep”, derives from the command used to perform a similar operation, using the Unix/Linux text
editor ed:
g/re/p

The grep utilities are a family that includes grep, egrep, and fgrep for searching duties. For most uses, you need to
use fgrep as it the fastest and only look into strings and words. However, typing grep is easy. Hence, it is a
personal choice.

grep command examples in Linux and Unix

Below is some standard grep command explained with examples to get you started with grep on Linux, macOS,
and Unix:

1. Search any line that contains the word in filename on Linux: grep 'word' filename
2. Perform a case-insensitive search for the word ‘bar’ in Linux and Unix: grep -i 'bar' file1
3. Look for all files in the current directory and in all of its subdirectories in Linux for the word ‘httpd’grep -R
'httpd' .

4. Search and display the total number of times that the string ‘nixcraft’ appears in a file named frontpage.md: grep
-c 'nixcraft' frontpage.md

Let us see all commands and options in details.

Syntax

The syntax is as follows:

grep 'word' filename

fgrep 'word-to-search' file.txt

grep 'word' file1 file2 file3

grep 'string1 string2' filename

cat otherfile | grep 'something'

command | grep 'something'

command option1 | grep 'data'

grep --color 'data' fileName

grep [-options] pattern filename

fgrep [-options] words file

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How do I use grep to search a file on Linux?

Search /etc/passwd file for boo user, enter:
grep boo /etc/passwd

Sample outputs:

foo:x:1000:1000:boo,,,:/home/boo:/bin/ksh

We can use fgrep/grep to find all the lines of a file that contain a particular word. For example, to list all the lines
of a file named address.txt in the current directory that contain the word “California”, run:
fgrep California address.txt

Please note that the above command also returns lines where “California” is part of other words, such as
“Californication” or “Californian”. Hence pass the -w option with the grep/fgrep command to get only lines where
“California” is included as a whole word:
fgrep -w California address.txt

You can force grep to ignore word case i.e match boo, Boo, BOO and all other combination with the -i option. For
instance, type the following command:
grep -i "boo" /etc/passwd

The last grep -i "boo" /etc/passwd can run as follows using the cat command too:
cat /etc/passwd | grep -i "boo"

How to use grep recursively

You can search recursively i.e. read all files under each directory for a string “192.168.1.5”
$ grep -r "192.168.1.5" /etc/

OR
$ grep -R "192.168.1.5" /etc/

Sample outputs:

/etc/ppp/options:# ms-wins 192.168.1.50

/etc/ppp/options:# ms-wins 192.168.1.51

/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/Wired connection 1:addresses1=192.168.1.5;24;192.168.1.2;

You will see result for 192.168.1.5 on a separate line preceded by the name of the file (such as /etc/ppp/options) in
which it was found. The inclusion of the file names in the output data can be suppressed by using the -h option as
follows:
$ grep -h -R "192.168.1.5" /etc/

OR
$ grep -hR "192.168.1.5" /etc/

Sample outputs:

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# ms-wins 192.168.1.50

# ms-wins 192.168.1.51

addresses1=192.168.1.5;24;192.168.1.2;

How to use grep to search words only

When you search for boo, grep will match fooboo, boo123, barfoo35 and more. You can force the grep command to
select only those lines containing matches that form whole words i.e. match only boo word:
$ grep -w "boo" file

How to use grep to search 2 different words

Use the egrep command as follows:
$ egrep -w 'word1|word2' /path/to/file

How can I count line when words has been matched

The grep can report the number of times that the pattern has been matched for each file using -c (count) option:
$ grep -c 'word' /path/to/file

Pass the -n option to precede each line of output with the number of the line in the text file from which it was
obtained:
$ grep -n 'root' /etc/passwd

1:root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

1042:rootdoor:x:0:0:rootdoor:/home/rootdoor:/bin/csh

3319:initrootapp:x:0:0:initrootapp:/home/initroot:/bin/ksh

Force grep invert match

You can use -v option to print inverts the match; that is, it matches only those lines that do not contain the given
word. For example print all line that do not contain the word bar:
$ grep -v bar /path/to/file

Display lines before and after the match

Want to see the lines before your matches? Try passing the -B to the grep:
grep -B NUM "word" file

grep -B 3 "foo" file1

Similarly, display the lines after your matches by passing the -A to the grep:
grep -A NUM "string" /pth/to/file

grep -A 4 "dropped" /var/log/ufw.log

We can combine those two options to get most meaningful outputs:

grep -C 4 -B 5 -A 6 --color 'error-code' /var/log/httpd/access_log

Here is a sample shell script that fetches the Linux kernel download urls:

.......

...

_out="/tmp/out.$$"

curl -s https://www.kernel.org/ > "$_out"

#######################

## grep -A used here ##

#######################

url="$(grep -A 2 '' ${_out} | grep -Eo '(http|https)://[^/"]+.*xz')"

gpgurl="${url/tar.xz/tar.sign}"

notify-send "A new kernel version ($remote) has been released."

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echo "* Downloading the Linux kernel (new version) ..."

wget -qc "$url" -O "${dldir}/${file}"

wget -qc "$gpgurl" -O "${dldir}/${gpgurl##*/}"

.....

..

UNIX / Linux pipes

grep command often used with shell pipes. In this example, show the name of the hard disk devices:

# dmesg | egrep '(s|h)d[a-z]'

Display cpu model name:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -i 'Model'

However, above command can be also used as follows without shell pipe:

# grep -i 'Model' /proc/cpuinfo

model : 30

model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 820 @ 1.73GHz

model : 30

model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 820 @ 1.73GHz

One of my favorite usage of grep or egrep command to filter the output of the yum command/dpkg command/apt command/apt-get command:

dpkg --list | grep linux-image

yum search php | grep gd

apt search maria | egrep 'server|client'

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Linux grep commands explained with shell pipes examples

How do I list just the names of matching files?

Use the -l option to list file name whose contents mention main():

$ grep -l 'main' *.c

Finally, we can force grep to display output in colors, enter:

$ grep --color vivek /etc/passwd

Grep command in action

In conclusion, the --color option increase readblity. For example, the GREP_COLOR environment variable and the grep --color=always can

GREP_COLOR='1;35' grep --color=always 'vivek' /etc/passwd

GREP_COLOR='1;32' grep --color=always 'vivek' /etc/passwd

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GREP_COLOR='1;37' grep --color=always 'root' /etc/passwd

GREP_COLOR='1;36' grep --color=always nobody /etc/passwd

In addition, to default red color now we can define colors using GREP_COLOR shell variable. The differnt color helps us massivly with v

Conclusion

The grep command is a very versatile and many new Linux or Unix users find it complicated. Hence, I suggest you read the grep man page

Linux grep command options Description

-i Ignore case distinctions on Linux and Unix

-w Force PATTERN to match only whole words

-v Select non-matching lines

-n Print line number with output lines

-h Suppress the Unix file name prefix on output

-r Search directories recursivly on Linux

-R Just like -r but follow all symlinks

-l Print only names of FILEs with selected lines

-c Print only a count of selected lines per FILE

--color Display matched pattern in colors

If you enjoyed the grep tutorial, then you might like to read our “Regular Expressions in Grep” tutorial.

This entry is 1 of 7 in the Linux / UNIX grep Command Tutorial series. Keep reading the rest of the series:

1. How To Use grep Command In Linux / UNIX

2. Regular Expressions In grep

3. Search Multiple Words / String Pattern Using grep Command

4. Grep Count Lines If a String / Word Matches

5. Grep From Files and Display the File Name

6. How To Find Files by Content Under UNIX

7. grep command: View Only Configuration File Directives

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Categories: BASH Shell, Linux, UNIX

Tags: egrep command, grep command, Easy

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