how can i do cat?

ZAMO · 05-02-2007, 11:44 PM

hi Guys,

i want a command that must display the contents of a file???
cat=yes
but i want to avoid commented lines not to be displayed.anyway??
you know the big file like php.ini , i need to seacrch 1000 of lines. So , i want a command to display the contens of a file, which can output only non-commented lines.

Thanks in advance.

jschiwal · 05-02-2007, 11:50 PM

You can use "grep -v" to remove lines containing the pattern of comments.

I don't use php, but if comments are lines beginning with '#', then
grep -v '^#' <filename> | less
will exclude commented lines.

You can add more exclusions like this:
grep -v -e '^#' -e '^!' | less

ZAMO · 05-03-2007, 12:11 AM

sorry guru,

ITs working fine.

THanks a lot

gilead · 05-03-2007, 02:07 AM

That works on my system - what version of grep and what distro are you using? Your man page for grep will have info on whether you need to use an option to specify that your search is a regular expresision. On my system that would be:

Code:

grep -E -v '^#' <filename> | less

Also, do you have spaces at the start of the lines before the comment symbol?

hashash · 05-03-2007, 02:14 AM

well, prolly there is a space before the comment starts?
Would help if you posted some part of the file as is..

but seriously, you should be able to work on the nice lead by jschiwal.
All you have to do is find how to 'grep out' those lines. Since am too
lazy to look up the man pages for grep..

cat file | perl -pe 's/\s*#//'|less

or sed..

or you can use less'es 'not match' option and scroll line by line to entries that dont match a comment ..

or ...

Indiestory · 05-03-2007, 11:30 AM

on my system atleast the -v option of grep removes anylines containing the following string, doesn't matter if theres space in front or not

jschiwal · 05-04-2007, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Indiestory

on my system atleast the -v option of grep removes anylines containing the following string, doesn't matter if theres space in front or not

If you only want to exclude lines that begin with #, then use ^ in the pattern. It is the beginning of line anchor.