I have a formatted file a portion of which I have given below:

2005-05-01/23:00:23 STICKER 23452010-ABE3098 Line one asdkjad a
2005-05-01/23:01:10 STICKER 23452010-ABE3098 I want this jha
2005-05-01/23:02:03 STICKER 23452010-ABE3098 klja fjskl s
2005-05-01/23:02:05 STICKER 23452010-ABE3098 hksf s f


Using egrep, I want to match the second line in the above set. Problem is, there are a set of similar lines in the file, and for each of these lines, all I know is the first field 2005-05-01/23:01:10, and the last one [partiall] : I want. The second and third column remain same length wise and in format. Is there some way I can use egrep to get the required lines?

I tried, egrep "2005-05-01/23:01:10 [A-Z]{7} [A-F0-9-]{16} I want" <filename>.

However, I got no match for this. Any suggestions?

well you've not really specified what makes it the line that your want.. if you're saying it's the one with a known phase at the end, then it should be simple:

grep -e "I want" filename

if it's starting with a fixed date string (why would that ever happen??) then

grep -e "^2005-05-01/23:01:10.*+I want" filename

Well, since it is a log file, it has a date field.

Coming back to the query, I tried out what you gave, and it works like a dream! Thanks a tonne. But can you explain the use of * and +? I had earlier tried .*? and it failed