Doubt in grep command

can u tell me an example wher v use * and . in grep

ls | grep "ab."

Will print all files starting with ab and having one another character, say
abc
abd
ab0
abf

ls | grep "ab*"

will give files with ab and anynumber of characters
say abcdef, abcd,abc,abd,ab0

oh okie... thansk maithu

if u want to discuss about other topics, create separate thread.

[@oracleclient ~]$ cat>ram
ali
amri
ajay
amit
anil
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "am." ram
amri
amit
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "aj*" ram
ali
amri
ajay
amit
anil
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "aj." ram
ajay
wy did this happen

oh sryc hris... i jus had an accompanyin doubt

actually the * here means like zero or more occurence of the particular alphabet.....
so in aj* it ll print all the words startin with a or aj or ajj

where j can zero or more occurrences

oh got t

why did "aj." print ajay... dot means any one charac more,doe
sn't it?

i think aj. will print all entries startin wit aj...

when u r using it in grep, it means anyline which contains "ab+any one character". ajay has (ab+a), so obviously it ll display. Suppose if u want to search for a complete word, use

Code:

grep -w 'aj.' <filename>

It ll not display 'ajay'

[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "j." ram
ajay
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "n." ram
anil
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "m." ram
amri
amit

wat does this dot exactly do??
if my file content is this way
[@oracleclient ~]$ cat ram
ali
amri
ajay
amit
anil
aj
an
still t prints this op
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "j." ram
ajay
[@oracleclient ~]$ grep "aj." ram
ajay
wats the logic

by default it wont search for complete word. Even if a part of a word matches the search pattern, it ll be displayed.

grep "j." ram -> ajay
grep "aj." ram -> ajay

oracleclient march]$ grep -i -e 'fruit' | -f list1 list2
-bash: -f: command not found

Followed the syntax given, but getting an error

-f is used to mention more than one file to search for the pattern from.
Am i right or wrong?

grep "xy." <filename>,,,,,,,,vl print al d lines starting frm 'xy' containing ny no of char
grep "xy*" <filename>,,,,,,,,vl print al d lines containing 'x' anywhere in d line,,,it has nthng 2 do wid 'y'


$ cat > grepdemo.txt

iftthen
ifelse
found
print
hault
answer
$ grep "if." grepdemo.txt

iftthen
ifelse
$ grep "fi." grepdemo.txt

$ grep "fi*" grepdemo.txt

iftthen
ifelse
found
$ grep "ia*" grepdemo.txt

iftthen
ifelse
print

-f is used to search for multiple patterns. Also search patterns are stored in separate file.

Example

Code:

$ cat 1.txt
orange yellow red
red green black
black white yellow
blue pink cyan
red green blue
white black cyan

$ cat search.txt
black
cyan

$ grep -f search.txt 1.txt
red green black
black white yellow
blue pink cyan
white black cyan


Instead of giving multiple patterns as arguments using -e switch, u can save it in a separate file and pass tat file as an argument to grep command using -f switch.

Thank you.

wat is the difference between ...

grep [a-z] filename and grep [!a-z] filename ???

[335802@oracleclient ~]$ cat list1
mango
orange
pineapple
lemons
[335802@oracleclient ~]$ grep [a-z] list1
mango
orange
pineapple
lemons
[335802@oracleclient ~]$ grep [!a-z] list1
mango
orange
pineapple
lemons

'!' doesn't have any significance. it ll be considered jus like a character.

Code:

$ cat 1.txt
orange yellow red
red blue green
white black cyan
cyan pink orange
red! blue! green!
BLUE! WHITE! BLACK!

$ grep '[a-z]' 1.txt
orange yellow red
red blue green
white black cyan
cyan pink orange
red! blue! green!

$ grep '[!a-z]' 1.txt
orange yellow red
red blue green
white black cyan
cyan pink orange
red! blue! green!
BLUE! WHITE! BLACK!

$ grep '[!]' 1.txt
red! blue! green!
BLUE! WHITE! BLACK!



hope u can notice the difference.

! doesn't seem to have a significance in grep.However, ^ means negation.

Suppose cat >> list1
1234

now grep [a-z] list1
mango
orange
pineapple
lemons

grep [!a-z] list1
mango
orange
pineapple
lemons

but,
grep [^a-z] list1
1234

Yes. ^ inside square bracket means 'negation' and ^ outside square bracket means 'starts with'.

jus like j* denotes 0 or more occurence...how do i specify 1 or more occurence in a grep command???