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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 LINUX

gzexe

GZEXE(1)						      General Commands Manual							  GZEXE(1)

NAME

       gzexe - compress executable files in place

SYNOPSIS

       gzexe name ...

DESCRIPTION

       The  gzexe  utility  allows you to compress executables in place and have them automatically uncompress and execute when you run them (at a
       penalty in performance).  For example if you execute ``gzexe /usr/bin/gdb'' it will create the following two files:
	   -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1026675 Jun	7 13:53 /usr/bin/gdb
	   -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 2304524 May 30 13:02 /usr/bin/gdb~
       /usr/bin/gdb~ is the original file and /usr/bin/gdb is the self-uncompressing executable file.  You can remove /usr/bin/gdb~ once  you  are
       sure that /usr/bin/gdb works properly.

       This utility is most useful on systems with very small disks.

OPTIONS

       -d     Decompress the given executables instead of compressing them.

SEE ALSO

       gzip(1), znew(1), zmore(1), zcmp(1), zforce(1)

CAVEATS

       The  compressed executable is a shell script.  This may create some security holes.  In particular, the compressed executable relies on the
       PATH environment variable to find gzip and some standard utilities (basename, chmod, ln, mkdir, mktemp, rm, sleep, and tail).

BUGS

       gzexe attempts to retain the original file attributes on the compressed executable, but you may have to fix them manually  in  some  cases,
       using chmod or chown.

																	  GZEXE(1)
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