Wildcard for grep


 
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# 1  
Old 10-20-2014
Wildcard for grep

GNU grep with Oracle Linux 6.3

I want to grep for strings starting with the pattern ora and and having the words r2j in it. It should return the lines highlighted in red below.
But , I think I am not using wildcard for multiple characters correctly.

Code:
$ cat someText.txt
ora_pmon_jcpprdvp1
ora_pmon_CDRTEST1
ora_pmon_CDRVP1
ora_pmon_r2jmqsit1
ora_pmon_r2jcpsit1
ora_pmon_mpiprdvp1
ora_pmon_mpisit1
ora_pmon_jcpsit1
ora_pmon_cdrsit1
$
$
$ grep ora*r2 someText.txt
$
$
$
$ grep "ora*r2" someText.txt
$

# 2  
Old 10-20-2014
grep does not use wildcard, it uses regular expressions. So, "a*" means match "", or "a", or "aaaaaaa", or "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", etc.

Try "ora.*r2". . has a special meaning to regular expressions -- "any character".
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
# 3  
Old 10-20-2014
It worked !! Thank You Corona.
So, the dot matches any single character in regular expressions.
What is the role of * in this ? And what is that dot (in red) doing outside the double quotes ? !!

Code:
$ grep "ora.*r2". someText.txt
ora_pmon_r2jmqsit1
ora_pmon_r2jcpsit1

# 4  
Old 10-20-2014
Quote:
Originally Posted by kraljic
What is the role of * in this ?
It is a modifier, meaning "zero or more of the previous thing". ? means "zero or one of the previous thing", and + means "one or more ..." etc.

Quote:
And what is that dot (in red) doing outside the double quotes ? !!
It ends the sentence in my previous post. It's not actually part of the expression. Smilie
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
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