Filters in Linux

Subject Code:MCA13

Dr Manjunath M Mrs. Komala R

Assistant Professor Assistant Professor
Department of MCA Department of MCA
M SRamaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT) M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT)
Bangalore - 560054 Bangalore - 560054
 Filters
●
Filters are the set of commands that take input from standard input stream i.e.
stdin, perform some operations and write output to standard output stream
i.e. stdout.
●
Filters in Unix are commands that take input, process it, and produce output,
●
Filters typically used for text processing.
●
They read data from standard input (stdin), perform some transformation, and
output the modified data to standard output (stdout).
●
Common filter commands are
– cat
– cut
– head
– tail
– sort
– Uniq
– tr
 cat command
●
The cat (concatenate) command is used to view, combine, and create files.
●
Syntax:
– cat [options] filename
 head command
●
The head command is used to display the first few lines or bytes of a file.
●
It is useful for quickly viewing the beginning of large text files.
●
Syntax:
– head [OPTION]... [FILE]...
 tail command
●
The tail command is used to display the last few lines or bytes of a file.
●
It is useful for viewing logs, real-time updates, and recent data.
●
Syntax:
– tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...
 sort command
●
The sort command is used to arrange lines in text files in a specific order.
●
Syntax:
– tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...
 cut command
●
The cut command in Unix is used to extract specific sections of each line from a file or
standard input.
●
It is commonly used for text processing and works by selecting portions of data based on
bytes, characters, or fields.
●
Syntax:
– cut [options] filename
 pr command
●
The pr command in Linux is used to format text files for printing.
●
It adds headers, footers, page breaks, columns, and more to make output look structured
when printed.
●
Syntax:
– pr [options] [file]
 paste command
●
The paste command in Linux is used to merge lines of files horizontally (side by side) by
joining them column-wise.
●
Syntax:
– paste [options] file1 file2 ...
 uniq command
●
The uniq command in Linux is used to filter out adjacent duplicate lines from a sorted
file or input.
●
It helps in detecting and removing consecutive duplicate entries while keeping the first
occurrence.
●
Syntax: uniq [options] file1
uniq command
 tr command
●
The tr (translate) command in Linux is used for text transformation by replacing,
deleting, or compressing characters from standard input (stdin).
●
Syntax:
– tr [OPTION] SET1 [SET2]
 grep command
●
The grep stands for Global Regular Expression Print
●
The grep command in Linux is used to search for specific text or patterns in files or
input streams.
●
Syntax:
– grep [OPTIONS] PATTERN [FILE]
●
Example:
– grep -c "hello" file.txt
grep command
 Basic Regular Expression (BRE)

Basic Regular Expression (BRE)

●
Basic Regular Expressions (BRE) are a set of pattern-matching rules used in text
processing tools like grep, sed, awk, and vi in Linux.
●
They allow searching and manipulating text based on specific character patterns.
●
Used for searching, filtering, and text manipulation in command-line tools.
●
Example: grep "pattern" file.txt searches for "pattern" in file.txt.
●
BRE supports character classes, anchors, repetition, and grouping to match specific text
patterns.
●
Common Operators in BRE
➢ ^ → Matches the beginning of a line.
➢ $ → Matches the end of a line.
➢ * → Matches zero or more occurrences of the preceding character.
➢ . → Matches any single character.
➢ [abc] → Matches any one of "a", "b", or "c".
➢ [^abc] → Matches any character except "a", "b", or "c".
BRE command
 Extended Regular Expression (ERE)

Extended Regular Expression (ERE)

●
Extended Regular Expressions (ERE) introduce several enhancements over Basic
Regular Expressions (BRE) that facilitate more powerful and flexible pattern matching
without the verbose syntax often required in BRE.

●
The primary enhancements of ERE over BRE involve adding syntactic sugar (e.g., +, ?,
and |) that reduces the need for escaping and simplifies expressions.

●
ERE also typically processes patterns slightly faster due to their optimized handling of
these expressions.

●
These features make ERE particularly useful for complex pattern matching tasks in scripts
and command-line operations where readability and efficiency are crucial.
RE command
End of the Presentation