[SOLVED] grep word finder?

machika · 01-18-2018, 12:36 PM

Hi,
Can't find the answer to this googlewise.

When trying to find all <the> in file.txt using,

Quote:

$ grep the file.txt

it shows,

Quote:

for the time neither or further

How can you make it show <the> exclusively and ignore, neither & further?

Turbocapitalist · 01-18-2018, 12:38 PM

Yes, what you are looking for are the word boundaries. The different regular expression styles use different notation to represent them. [:<:] and [:>:], or \< and \>, or \b

They need to be before and after your pattern.

syg00 · 01-18-2018, 04:44 PM

grep has parameters for just this task. See the manpage.
Of course word-bounding also works.

Both have been known to cause surprises.

AwesomeMachine · 01-18-2018, 05:00 PM

I usually forget how to get whole words, so I just add spaces before and after.

Turbocapitalist · 01-19-2018, 01:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine

I usually forget how to get whole words, so I just add spaces before and after.

That works only for words in the middle of a sentence without punctuation. Look into the word boundary markers for more accurate results which will include words near punctuation or at the beginning or end of a line.

JJJCR · 01-19-2018, 03:35 AM

check out link below:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...ord-boundaries

Never test but I think this might work:

grep ' the ' < file.txt

machika · 01-19-2018, 03:48 AM

@JJJCR

Quote:

Never test but I think this might work:

Quote:

grep ' the ' < file.txt

You nailed it. Thanks.

syg00 · 01-19-2018, 03:55 AM

Expect to be surprised at some time in the future. Read post #5.

JJJCR · 01-21-2018, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by machika

@JJJCR

You nailed it. Thanks.

Thanks for the update, glad to know it works! Cheers!