grep for word - Shell Programming and Scripting

eltinator · #1 (**permalink**) 04-22-2008

Hi, I'm a little confused with the grep options and can't seem to find the correct one I need. I basically want to grep a file for a word with the pattern in it. I tried:

Code:

grep -w word file

But this just returns word if it's in there somewhere. I want the full word that that pattern is in so if my file looks like

this is a file
and here is someword

I want it to return:

someword

DukeNuke2 · #2 (**permalink**) 04-22-2008

work with returncodes...

Code:

grep -w yourword yourfile 2>/dev/null
if [ $? -eq "0" ]
then
 echo "yourword found"
else
 echo "yourword NOT found"
fi

do a little finetuning on the above "script" to fit your needs...

hth,
DN2

aigles · #3 (**permalink**) 04-22-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by eltinator

Hi, I'm a little confused with the grep options and can't seem to find the correct one I need. I basically want to grep a file for a word with the pattern in it. I tried:

Code:

grep -w word file

But this just returns word if it's in there somewhere. I want the full word that that pattern is in so if my file looks like

this is a file
and here is someword

I want it to return:

someword

Add the -o option.

Quote:

-o, --only-matching
Show only the part of a matching line that matches PATTERN.
-w, --word-regexp
Select only those lines containing matches that form whole words. The test is that the matching sub-
string must either be at the beginning of the line, or preceded by a non-word constituent character.
Similarly, it must be either at the end of the line or followed by a non-word constituent character.
Word-constituent characters are letters, digits, and the underscore.

Code:

grep -ow pattern inpufile

Jean-Pierre.

eltinator · #4 (**permalink**) 04-22-2008

hmm the -ow option didnt seem to work. I tried changing the ordering of it too but it didnt return anything at all. Do I need to pipe it or anything?

era · #5 (**permalink**) 04-22-2008

grep -ow word will find "word" but not "someword". A pattern which matches the entire word in which the search pattern is embedded would be something like

Code:

grep -ow '[A-Za-z]*word[A-Za-z]*' file

This says if there are any A-Z or a-z characters before or after, those are included in the pattern (and thus in what should be printed by -o). Then I guess you don't really need the -w option because the specified pattern already takes care of matching an entire word.

If you want "quote" marks, 'single' quotes, hyp-hens or abbr'viation apostrophes, you need to change the pattern slightly. Getting it perfectly right for all possible English words is not easy (and perhaps not even doable, depending on how you define "all", "possible", and "English").

eltinator · #6 (**permalink**) 04-22-2008

cool thanks for the help =D

More UNIX and Linux Forum Topics You Might Find Helpful
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
how to grep for a word and display only the word	ananthmm	UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers	6	05-29-2008 05:00 AM
Grep for Particular Word	reddi22	Shell Programming and Scripting	2	01-22-2008 07:36 AM
grep a word from a line	Orbix	UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers	2	12-23-2007 07:52 AM
Grep for X character on a word	jjoves	UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers	5	08-06-2004 02:14 AM
How to grep more then one word?	roco	UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers	5	10-18-2002 07:43 AM

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode