What does the following command do?

salman4u · #1 (**permalink**) 03-19-2009

Hello,
what does this follow command imply?

Code:

ls -l | sed -n '/^.{5,8\}w/p'

Thanks in advance! i got confused seeing this command in one of the book's exercise

pludi · #2 (**permalink**) 03-19-2009

It displays only those files/directories that have the group/other write bit set.

sed -n means silent operation (don't print anything by default). The regex reads as "From the beginning of the line (^) match any character (.) 5 to 8 times ({5,8}). If somewhere between position 6 and 9 there is a literal 'w' print this line (set command 'p')"

salman4u · #3 (**permalink**) 03-19-2009

thanks pludi

you're the man. You replied in a very straight forward manner that even a beginner like me could understand
thanks man again

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