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grep(1)				 User Commands			       grep(1)

NAME
       grep - search a file for a pattern

SYNOPSIS
       /usr/bin/grep [-bchilnsvw] limited-regular-expression
	    [filename]...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/grep [-E | -F] [-c | -l | -q] [-bhinsvx] -e pattern_list...
	    [-f pattern_file]... [file]...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/grep [-E | -F] [-c | -l | -q] [-bhinsvx]
	    [-e pattern_list]... -f pattern_file... [file]...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/grep [-E | -F] [-c | -l | -q] [-bhinsvx] pattern
	    [file]...

DESCRIPTION
       The grep utility searches text files for a pattern and prints all lines
       that contain that pattern.  It uses a compact  non-deterministic	 algo‐
       rithm.

       Be  careful using the characters $, *, [, ^, |, (, ), and \ in the pat‐
       tern_list because they are also meaningful to the shell. It  is	safest
       to enclose the entire pattern_list in single quotes a´...a´.

       If  no files are specified, grep assumes standard input. Normally, each
       line found is copied to standard	 output.  The  file  name  is  printed
       before each line found if there is more than one input file.

   /usr/bin/grep
       The  /usr/bin/grep  utility uses limited regular expressions like those
       described on the regexp(5) manual page to match the patterns.

   /usr/xpg4/bin/grep
       The options -E and -F affect the way /usr/xpg4/bin/grep interprets pat‐
       tern_list.  If  -E  is  specified,  /usr/xpg4/bin/grep  interprets pat‐
       tern_list as a full regular expression (see -E for description).	 If -F
       is  specified,  grep interprets pattern_list as a fixed string. If nei‐
       ther are specified, grep interprets pattern_list	 as  a	basic  regular
       expression as described on regex(5) manual page.

OPTIONS
       The   following	options	 are  supported	 for  both  /usr/bin/grep  and
       /usr/xpg4/bin/grep:

       -b    Precedes each line by the block number on	which  it  was	found.
	     This  can	be  useful in locating block numbers by context (first
	     block is 0).

       -c    Prints only a count of the lines that contain the pattern.

       -h    Prevents the name of the file containing the matching  line  from
	     being  prepended  to  that	 line.	 Used  when searching multiple
	     files.

       -i    Ignores upper/lower case distinction during comparisons.

       -l    Prints only the names of files with matching lines, separated  by
	     NEWLINE  characters.  Does not repeat the names of files when the
	     pattern is found more than once.

       -n    Precedes each line by its line number in the file (first line  is
	     1).

       -s    Suppresses error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files.

       -v    Prints all lines except those that contain the pattern.

       -w    Searches  for the expression as a word as if surrounded by \< and
	     \>.

   /usr/xpg4/bin/grep
       The following options are supported for /usr/xpg4/bin/grep only:

       -e pattern_list	  Specifies one or more patterns to be used during the
			  search  for  input. Patterns in pattern_list must be
			  separated by a NEWLINE character. A null pattern can
			  be  specified	 by two adjacent newline characters in
			  pattern_list. Unless the -E or  -F  option  is  also
			  specified,  each pattern is treated as a basic regu‐
			  lar expression.  Multiple  -e	 and  -f  options  are
			  accepted  by grep. All of the specified patterns are
			  used when matching lines, but the order  of  evalua‐
			  tion is unspecified.

       -E		  Matches  using full regular expressions. Treats each
			  pattern specified as a full regular  expression.  If
			  any  entire  full regular expression pattern matches
			  an input line, the line is matched. A null full reg‐
			  ular	expression matches every line. Each pattern is
			  interpreted  as  a  full   regular   expression   as
			  described on the regex(5) manual page, except for \(
			  and \), and including:

			      1.     A full regular expression followed	 by  +
				     that  matches  one or more occurrences of
				     the full regular expression.

			      2.     A full regular expression followed	 by  ?
				     that  matches  0  or 1 occurrences of the
				     full regular expression.

			      3.     Full regular expressions separated	 by  |
				     or	 by a new-line that match strings that
				     are matched by any of the expressions.

			      4.     A	full  regular	expression   that   is
				     enclosed in parentheses () for grouping.
			  The  order  of  precedence  of operators is [], then
			  *?+, then concatenation, then | and new-line.

       -f pattern_file	  Reads one or more patterns from the  file  named  by
			  the path name pattern_file. Patterns in pattern_file
			  are terminated by a NEWLINE character. A  null  pat‐
			  tern	can  be	 specified  by	an  empty line in pat‐
			  tern_file. Unless the -E or -F option is also speci‐
			  fied,	 each  pattern	is  treated as a basic regular
			  expression.

       -F		  Matches using fixed  strings.	 Treats	 each  pattern
			  specified  as	 a string instead of a regular expres‐
			  sion. If an input line contains any of the  patterns
			  as  a	 contiguous  sequence  of  bytes,  the line is
			  matched. A  null  string  matches  every  line.  See
			  fgrep(1) for more information.

       -q		  Quiet.  Does not write anything to the standard out‐
			  put, regardless of matching lines. Exits  with  zero
			  status if an input line is selected.

       -x		  Considers  only  input lines that use all characters
			  in the line to match an entire fixed string or regu‐
			  lar expression to be matching lines.

OPERANDS
       The following operands are supported:

       file    A  path	name  of a file to be searched for the patterns. If no
	       file operands are specified, the standard input is used.

   /usr/bin/grep
       pattern	  Specifies a pattern to be used during the search for input.

   /usr/xpg4/bin/grep
       pattern	  Specifies one or more patterns to be used during the	search
		  for  input.  This operand is treated as if it were specified
		  as -e pattern_list.

USAGE
       The -e pattern_list option has the same effect as the pattern_list  op‐
       erand,  but  is	useful when pattern_list begins with the hyphen delim‐
       iter. It is also useful when it is more convenient to provide  multiple
       patterns as separate arguments.

       Multiple	 -e  and -f options are accepted and grep uses all of the pat‐
       terns it is given while matching input  text  lines.  Notice  that  the
       order of evaluation is not specified. If an implementation finds a null
       string as a pattern, it is allowed to use that pattern first,  matching
       every line, and effectively ignore any other patterns.

       The  -q	option provides a means of easily determining whether or not a
       pattern (or string) exists in a group of files. When searching  several
       files,  it  provides  a performance improvement (because it can quit as
       soon as it finds the first match) and requires less care by the user in
       choosing the set of files to supply as arguments (because it exits zero
       if it finds a match even if grep detected an access or  read  error  on
       earlier file operands).

   Large File Behavior
       See  largefile(5)  for  the  description	 of  the behavior of grep when
       encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).

EXAMPLES
       Example 1 Finding All Uses of a Word

       To find all uses of the word "Posix" (in any case) in the file text.mm,
       and write with line numbers:

	 example% /usr/bin/grep -i -n posix text.mm

       Example 2 Finding All Empty Lines

       To find all empty lines in the standard input:

	 example% /usr/bin/grep ^$

       or

	 example% /usr/bin/grep -v .

       Example 3 Finding Lines Containing Strings

       All of the following commands print all lines containing strings abc or
       def or both:

	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep 'abc
	 def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -e 'abc
	 def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -e 'abc' -e 'def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E 'abc|def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E -e 'abc|def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E -e 'abc' -e 'def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E 'abc
	 def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E -e 'abc
	 def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F -e 'abc' -e 'def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F 'abc
	 def'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F -e 'abc
	 def'

       Example 4 Finding Lines with Matching Strings

       Both of the following commands print all lines matching exactly abc  or
       def:

	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E '^abc$ ^def$'
	 example% /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F -x 'abc def'

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See  environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
       that affect the execution of grep: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE,  LC_CTYPE,
       LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0    One or more matches were found.

       1    No matches were found.

       2    Syntax errors or inaccessible files (even if matches were found).

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

   /usr/bin/grep
       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     │	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Availability		     │SUNWcs			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │CSI			     │Not Enabled		   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

   /usr/xpg4/bin/grep
       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     │	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Availability		     │SUNWxcu4			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │CSI			     │Enabled			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability	     │Committed			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Standard		     │See standards(5).		   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

SEE ALSO
       egrep(1),  fgrep(1),  sed(1),  sh(1), attributes(5), environ(5), large‐
       file(5), regex(5), regexp(5), standards(5)

NOTES
   /usr/bin/grep
       Lines are limited only by the size of the available virtual memory.  If
       there  is a line with embedded nulls, grep only matches up to the first
       null. If the line matches, the entire line is printed.

   /usr/xpg4/bin/grep
       The results are unspecified if input files contain  lines  longer  than
       LINE_MAX	  bytes	 or  contain  binary  data.  LINE_MAX  is  defined  in
       /usr/include/limits.h.

SunOS 5.10			  28 Apr 2010			       grep(1)
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