GREP(1) General Commands Manual GREP(1)
NAME
grep, egrep, fgrep - print lines matching a pattern
SYNOPSIS
grep [OPTIONS] PATTERN [FILE...]
grep [OPTIONS] [-e PATTERN | -f FILE] [FILE...]
DESCRIPTION
grep searches the named input FILEs (or standard input if no files are named, or if a single hyphen-minus (-)
is given as file name) 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. Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated, but is provided to allow
historical applications that rely on them to run unmodified.
OPTIONS
Generic Program Information
--help Print a usage message briefly summarizing these command-line options and the bug-reporting address,
then exit.
-V, --version
Print the version number of grep to the standard output stream. This version number should be included
in all bug reports (see below).
Matcher Selection
-E, --extended-regexp
Interpret PATTERN as an extended regular expression (ERE, see below). (-E is specified by POSIX.)
-F, --fixed-strings, --fixed-regexp
Interpret PATTERN as a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines, any of which is to be matched.
(-F is specified by POSIX, --fixed-regexp is an obsoleted alias, please do not use it in new scripts.)
-G, --basic-regexp
Interpret PATTERN as a basic regular expression (BRE, see below). This is the default.
-P, --perl-regexp
Interpret PATTERN as a Perl regular expression. This is highly experimental and grep -P may warn of
unimplemented features.
Matching Control
-e PATTERN, --regexp=PATTERN
Use PATTERN as the pattern. This can be used to specify multiple search patterns, or to protect a
pattern beginning with a hyphen (-). (-e is specified by POSIX.)
-f FILE, --file=FILE
Obtain patterns from FILE, one per line. The empty file contains zero patterns, and therefore matches
nothing. (-f is specified by POSIX.)
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore case distinctions in both the PATTERN and the input files. (-i is specified by POSIX.)
-v, --invert-match
Invert the sense of matching, to select non-matching lines. (-v is specified by POSIX.)
-w, --word-regexp
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. (-c is specified by POSIX.)
--color[=WHEN], --colour[=WHEN]
Surround the matched (non-empty) strings, matching lines, context lines, file names, line numbers, byte
offsets, and separators (for fields and groups of context lines) with escape sequences to display them
in color on the terminal. The colors are defined by the environment variable GREP_COLORS. The
deprecated environment variable GREP_COLOR is still supported, but its setting does not have priority.
WHEN is never, always, or auto.
-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. (-l is specified by POSIX.)
-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.
-o, --only-matching
Print only the matched (non-empty) parts of a matching line, with each such part on a separate output
line.
-q, --quiet, --silent
Quiet; do not write anything to standard output. Exit immediately with zero status if any match is
found, even if an error was detected. Also see the -s or --no-messages option. (-q is specified by
POSIX.)
-s, --no-messages
Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files. Portability note: unlike GNU grep, 7th
Edition Unix grep did not conform to POSIX, because it lacked -q and its -s option behaved like GNU
grep's -q option. USG-style grep also lacked -q but its -s option behaved like GNU grep. Portable
shell scripts should avoid both -q and -s and should redirect standard and error output to /dev/null
instead. (-s is specified by POSIX.)
Output Line Prefix Control
-b, --byte-offset
Print the 0-based byte offset within the input file before each line of output. If -o
(--only-matching) is specified, print the offset of the matching part itself.
-H, --with-filename
Print the file name for each match. This is the default when there is more than one file to search.
-h, --no-filename
Suppress the prefixing of file names on output. This is the default when there is only one file (or
only standard input) to search.
tabs looks normal. This is useful with options that prefix their output to the actual content: -H,-n,
and -b. In order to improve the probability that lines from a single file will all start at the same
column, this also causes the line number and byte offset (if present) to be printed in a minimum size
field width.
-u, --unix-byte-offsets
Report Unix-style byte offsets. This switch causes grep to report byte offsets as if the file were a
Unix-style text file, i.e., with CR characters stripped off. This will produce results identical to
running grep on a Unix machine. This option has no effect unless -b option is also used; it has no
effect on platforms other than MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
-Z, --null
Output a zero byte (the ASCII NUL character) instead of the character that normally follows a file
name. For example, grep -lZ outputs a zero byte after each file name instead of the usual newline.
This option makes the output unambiguous, even in the presence of file names containing unusual
characters like newlines. This option can be used with commands like find -print0, perl -0, sort -z,
and xargs -0 to process arbitrary file names, even those that contain newline characters.
Context Line Control
-A NUM, --after-context=NUM
Print NUM lines of trailing context after matching lines. Places a line containing a group separator
(described under --group-separator) between contiguous groups of matches. With the -o or
--only-matching option, this has no effect and a warning is given.
-B NUM, --before-context=NUM
Print NUM lines of leading context before matching lines. Places a line containing a group separator
(described under --group-separator) between contiguous groups of matches. With the -o or
--only-matching option, this has no effect and a warning is given.
-C NUM, -NUM, --context=NUM
Print NUM lines of output context. Places a line containing a group separator (described under
--group-separator) between contiguous groups of matches. With the -o or --only-matching option, this
has no effect and a warning is given.
--group-separator=SEP
Use SEP as a group separator. By default SEP is double hyphen (--).
--no-group-separator
Use empty string as a group separator.
File and Directory Selection
-a, --text
Process a binary file as if it were text; this is equivalent to the --binary-files=text option.
--binary-files=TYPE
If the first few bytes of a file indicate that the file contains binary data, assume that the file is
of type TYPE. By default, TYPE is binary, and grep normally outputs either a one-line message saying
that a binary file matches, or no message if there is no match. If TYPE is without-match, grep assumes
that a binary file does not match; this is equivalent to the -I option. If TYPE is text, grep
processes a binary file as if it were text; this is equivalent to the -a option. Warning: grep
--binary-files=text might output binary garbage, which can have nasty side effects if the output is a
terminal and if the terminal driver interprets some of it as commands.
-D ACTION, --devices=ACTION
[...] as wildcards, and \ to quote a wildcard or backslash character literally.
--exclude-from=FILE
Skip files whose base name matches any of the file-name globs read from FILE (using wildcard matching
as described under --exclude).
--exclude-dir=DIR
Exclude directories matching the pattern DIR from recursive searches.
-I Process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data; this is equivalent to the
--binary-files=without-match option.
--include=GLOB
Search only files whose base name matches GLOB (using wildcard matching as described under --exclude).
-r, --recursive
Read all files under each directory, recursively, following symbolic links only if they are on the
command line. This is equivalent to the -d recurse option.
-R, --dereference-recursive
Read all files under each directory, recursively. Follow all symbolic links, unlike -r.
Other Options
--line-buffered
Use line buffering on output. This can cause a performance penalty.
-U, --binary
Treat the file(s) as binary. By default, under MS-DOS and MS-Windows, grep guesses the file type by
looking at the contents of the first 32KB read from the file. If grep decides the file is a text file,
it strips the CR characters from the original file contents (to make regular expressions with ^ and $
work correctly). Specifying -U overrules this guesswork, causing all files to be read and passed to
the matching mechanism verbatim; if the file is a text file with CR/LF pairs at the end of each line,
this will cause some regular expressions to fail. This option has no effect on platforms other than
MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
-z, --null-data
Treat the input as a set of lines, each terminated by a zero byte (the ASCII NUL character) instead of
a newline. Like the -Z or --null option, this option can be used with commands like sort -z to process
arbitrary file names.
REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
A regular expression is a pattern that describes a set of strings. Regular expressions are constructed
analogously to arithmetic expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
grep understands three different versions of regular expression syntax: “basic,” “extended” and “perl.” In
GNU grep, there is no difference in available functionality between basic and extended syntaxes. In other
implementations, basic regular expressions are less powerful. The following description applies to extended
regular expressions; differences for basic regular expressions are summarized afterwards. Perl regular
expressions give additional functionality, and are documented in pcresyntax(3) and pcrepattern(3), but may not
be available on every system.
The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions that match a single character. Most characters,
including all letters and digits, are regular expressions that match themselves. Any meta-character with
special meaning may be quoted by preceding it with a backslash.
equivalent to [aBbCcDd], for example. To obtain the traditional interpretation of bracket expressions, you
can use the C locale by setting the LC_ALL environment variable to the value C.
Finally, certain named classes of characters are predefined within bracket expressions, as follows. Their
names are self explanatory, and they are [:alnum:], [:alpha:], [:cntrl:], [:digit:], [:graph:], [:lower:],
[:print:], [:punct:], [:space:], [:upper:], and [:xdigit:]. For example, [[:alnum:]] means the character
class of numbers and letters in the current locale. In the C locale and ASCII character set encoding, this is
the same as [0-9A-Za-z]. (Note that the brackets in these class names are part of the symbolic names, and
must be included in addition to the brackets delimiting the bracket expression.) Most meta-characters lose
their special meaning inside bracket expressions. To include a literal ] place it first in the list.
Similarly, to include a literal ^ place it anywhere but first. Finally, to include a literal - place it last.
Anchoring
The caret ^ and the dollar sign $ are meta-characters that respectively match the empty string at the
beginning and end of a line.
The Backslash Character and Special Expressions
The symbols \< and \> respectively match the empty string at the beginning and end of a word. The symbol \b
matches the empty string at the edge of a word, and \B matches the empty string provided it's not at the edge
of a word. The symbol \w is a synonym for [_[:alnum:]] and \W is a synonym for [^_[:alnum:]].
Repetition
A regular expression may be followed by one of several repetition operators:
? The preceding item is optional and matched at most once.
* The preceding item will be matched zero or more times.
+ The preceding item will be matched one or more times.
{n} The preceding item is matched exactly n times.
{n,} The preceding item is matched n or more times.
{,m} The preceding item is matched at most m times. This is a GNU extension.
{n,m} The preceding item is matched at least n times, but not more than m times.
Concatenation
Two regular expressions may be concatenated; the resulting regular expression matches any string formed by
concatenating two substrings that respectively match the concatenated expressions.
Alternation
Two regular expressions may be joined by the infix operator |; the resulting regular expression matches any
string matching either alternate expression.
Precedence
Repetition takes precedence over concatenation, which in turn takes precedence over alternation. A whole
expression may be enclosed in parentheses to override these precedence rules and form a subexpression.
Back References and Subexpressions
The back-reference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring previously matched by the nth
parenthesized subexpression of the regular expression.
Basic vs Extended Regular Expressions
In basic regular expressions the meta-characters ?, +, {, |, (, and ) lose their special meaning; instead use
the backslashed versions \?, \+, \{, \|, \(, and \).
Traditional egrep did not support the { meta-character, and some egrep implementations support \{ instead, so
portable scripts should avoid { in grep -E patterns and should use [{] to match a literal {.
installed, or if grep was not compiled with national language support (NLS).
GREP_OPTIONS
This variable specifies default options to be placed in front of any explicit options. For example, if
GREP_OPTIONS is '--binary-files=without-match --directories=skip', grep behaves as if the two options
--binary-files=without-match and --directories=skip had been specified before any explicit options.
Option specifications are separated by whitespace. A backslash escapes the next character, so it can
be used to specify an option containing whitespace or a backslash.
GREP_COLOR
This variable specifies the color used to highlight matched (non-empty) text. It is deprecated in
favor of GREP_COLORS, but still supported. The mt, ms, and mc capabilities of GREP_COLORS have
priority over it. It can only specify the color used to highlight the matching non-empty text in any
matching line (a selected line when the -v command-line option is omitted, or a context line when -v is
specified). The default is 01;31, which means a bold red foreground text on the terminal's default
background.
GREP_COLORS
Specifies the colors and other attributes used to highlight various parts of the output. Its value is
a colon-separated list of capabilities that defaults to
ms=01;31:mc=01;31:sl=:cx=:fn=35:ln=32:bn=32:se=36 with the rv and ne boolean capabilities omitted
(i.e., false). Supported capabilities are as follows.
sl= SGR substring for whole selected lines (i.e., matching lines when the -v command-line option is
omitted, or non-matching lines when -v is specified). If however the boolean rv capability and
the -v command-line option are both specified, it applies to context matching lines instead.
The default is empty (i.e., the terminal's default color pair).
cx= SGR substring for whole context lines (i.e., non-matching lines when the -v command-line option
is omitted, or matching lines when -v is specified). If however the boolean rv capability and
the -v command-line option are both specified, it applies to selected non-matching lines
instead. The default is empty (i.e., the terminal's default color pair).
rv Boolean value that reverses (swaps) the meanings of the sl= and cx= capabilities when the -v
command-line option is specified. The default is false (i.e., the capability is omitted).
mt=01;31
SGR substring for matching non-empty text in any matching line (i.e., a selected line when the
-v command-line option is omitted, or a context line when -v is specified). Setting this is
equivalent to setting both ms= and mc= at once to the same value. The default is a bold red
text foreground over the current line background.
ms=01;31
SGR substring for matching non-empty text in a selected line. (This is only used when the -v
command-line option is omitted.) The effect of the sl= (or cx= if rv) capability remains active
when this kicks in. The default is a bold red text foreground over the current line background.
mc=01;31
SGR substring for matching non-empty text in a context line. (This is only used when the -v
command-line option is specified.) The effect of the cx= (or sl= if rv) capability remains
active when this kicks in. The default is a bold red text foreground over the current line
background.
fn=35 SGR substring for file names prefixing any content line. The default is a magenta text
ne Boolean value that prevents clearing to the end of line using Erase in Line (EL) to Right
(\33[K) each time a colorized item ends. This is needed on terminals on which EL is not
supported. It is otherwise useful on terminals for which the back_color_erase (bce) boolean
terminfo capability does not apply, when the chosen highlight colors do not affect the
background, or when EL is too slow or causes too much flicker. The default is false (i.e., the
capability is omitted).
Note that boolean capabilities have no =... part. They are omitted (i.e., false) by default and
become true when specified.
See the Select Graphic Rendition (SGR) section in the documentation of the text terminal that is used
for permitted values and their meaning as character attributes. These substring values are integers in
decimal representation and can be concatenated with semicolons. grep takes care of assembling the
result into a complete SGR sequence (\33[...m). Common values to concatenate include 1 for bold, 4 for
underline, 5 for blink, 7 for inverse, 39 for default foreground color, 30 to 37 for foreground colors,
90 to 97 for 16-color mode foreground colors, 38;5;0 to 38;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color modes
foreground colors, 49 for default background color, 40 to 47 for background colors, 100 to 107 for
16-color mode background colors, and 48;5;0 to 48;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color modes background
colors.
LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LANG
These variables specify the locale for the LC_COLLATE category, which determines the collating sequence
used to interpret range expressions like [a-z].
LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG
These variables specify the locale for the LC_CTYPE category, which determines the type of characters,
e.g., which characters are whitespace.
LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG
These variables specify the locale for the LC_MESSAGES category, which determines the language that
grep uses for messages. The default C locale uses American English messages.
POSIXLY_CORRECT
If set, grep behaves as POSIX requires; otherwise, grep behaves more like other GNU programs. POSIX
requires that options that follow file names must be treated as file names; by default, such options
are permuted to the front of the operand list and are treated as options. Also, POSIX requires that
unrecognized options be diagnosed as “illegal”, but since they are not really against the law the
default is to diagnose them as “invalid”. POSIXLY_CORRECT also disables _N_GNU_nonoption_argv_flags_,
described below.
_N_GNU_nonoption_argv_flags_
(Here N is grep's numeric process ID.) If the ith character of this environment variable's value is 1,
do not consider the ith operand of grep to be an option, even if it appears to be one. A shell can put
this variable in the environment for each command it runs, specifying which operands are the results of
file name wildcard expansion and therefore should not be treated as options. This behavior is
available only with the GNU C library, and only when POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set.
EXIT STATUS
Normally, the exit status is 0 if selected lines are found and 1 otherwise. But the exit status is 2 if an
error occurred, unless the -q or --quiet or --silent option is used and a selected line is found. Note,
however, that POSIX only mandates, for programs such as grep, cmp, and diff, that the exit status in case of
error be greater than 1; it is therefore advisable, for the sake of portability, to use logic that tests for
this general condition instead of strict equality with 2.
Known Bugs
Large repetition counts in the {n,m} construct may cause grep to use lots of memory. In addition, certain
other obscure regular expressions require exponential time and space, and may cause grep to run out of memory.
Back-references are very slow, and may require exponential time.
SEE ALSO
Regular Manual Pages
awk(1), cmp(1), diff(1), find(1), gzip(1), perl(1), sed(1), sort(1), xargs(1), zgrep(1), read(2), pcre(3),
pcresyntax(3), pcrepattern(3), terminfo(5), glob(7), regex(7).
POSIX Programmer's Manual Page
grep(1p).
TeXinfo Documentation
The full documentation for grep is maintained as a TeXinfo manual, which you can read at
http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/. If the info and grep programs are properly installed at your site,
the command
info grep
should give you access to the complete manual.
NOTES
This man page is maintained only fitfully; the full documentation is often more up-to-date.
GNU's not Unix, but Unix is a beast; its plural form is Unixen.
User Commands GNU grep 2.20 GREP(1)
Back to main site | Back to man page index