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Full Discussion: | help | unix | grep - Can I use grep to return a string with exactly n matches?
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers | help | unix | grep - Can I use grep to return a string with exactly n matches? Post 302361284 by MykC on Monday 12th of October 2009 09:56:43 PM
Old 10-12-2009
| help | unix | grep - Can I use grep to return a string with exactly n matches?
Hello,

I looking to use grep to return a string with exactly n matches.

I'm building off this:

Code:
 
ls -aLl /bin | grep '^.\{9\}x' | tr -s ' '

Code:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 632816 Nov 25 2008 vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 632816 Nov 25 2008 view
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16008 May 25 2008 ypdomainname
-rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 62864 May 28 2008 zcat
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 594848 Jan 7 2007 zsh

Which prints a list of files in long format that are have an 'x' in the last file permissions position, then remove spaces between characters so that there is at most one. I now want to print just the file name. The following code does exactly that:

Code:
ls -aLl /bin | grep '^.\{9\}x' | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f9

Code:
vi
view
ypdomainname
zcat
zsh

What I want to see if I can do is use grep instead of cut.
I figure I would need grep to be able to match a pattern exactly n times then match .*/n$.
I would want to match [[:blank:]] 8 times then match any number of characters followed by an end of line character at the end of the string.

Code:
ls -aLl /bin | grep '^.\{9\}x' | tr -s ' ' | grep 'match[[:blank:]] 8 sequential or non-sequential times then .*/n$'

Any ideas if I can do this with grep and the power of regular expression?
I tried various expressions on the built in dictionary to see if I could return words with say exactly 4 'a' anywhere in the word without successs.
 

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LEARN ABOUT V7

zgrep

ZGREP(1)						      General Commands Manual							  ZGREP(1)

NAME

       zgrep - search possibly compressed files for a regular expression

SYNOPSIS

       zgrep [ grep_options ] [ -e ] pattern filename...

DESCRIPTION

       Zgrep  invokes  grep  on  compressed  or  gzipped  files.   These  grep	options  will  cause  zgrep  to  terminate  with  an  error  code:
       (-[drRzZ]|--di*|--exc*|--inc*|--rec*|--nu*).  All other options specified are passed directly to grep.  If no file is specified,  then  the
       standard input is decompressed if necessary and fed to grep.  Otherwise the given files are uncompressed if necessary and fed to grep.

       If the GREP environment variable is set, zgrep uses it as the grep program to be invoked.

EXIT CODE

       2 - An option that is not supported was specified.

AUTHOR

       Charles Levert (charles@comm.polymtl.ca)

SEE ALSO

       grep(1), gzexe(1), gzip(1), zdiff(1), zforce(1), zmore(1), znew(1)

																	  ZGREP(1)
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