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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How to modify the cat command to highlight a chosen word? Post 302974840 by bakunin on Saturday 4th of June 2016 02:39:37 PM
Old 06-04-2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by IndigoFox
Is it possible to modify the cat command (using a linux virtual machine) so that it displays text of a file and highlights a specifically chosen word?
Despite RudiC has already come up with some rather elaborate workarounds: the short answer is you can't. The reason is (as RudiC also mentioned) that cat is intended for a different purpose.

Your questions amounts to "can i modify a hammer so that it drills holes". Yes, maybe, somehow, but why not use a drilling machine instead, which will be better suited for that from the start?

You can use sed as mentioned to decorate certain words or phrases with highlighting code, but that is quirky at best and certainly not very portable (chances are it won't work in the same way on another system). If you just want to search for something and want to have it easier to see the found pieces use the grep facility. In your Linuy system the grep has a --color option which should do what you want. If memory serves right this is even on by default. Otherwise cosult the man page of it.

Moderator's Comments:
Mod Comment And, by the way: please do NOT post in the "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions" forum if you are not doing exactly that - write an essay about some frequently asked question. I have moved your thread to a more fitting forum. Thanks for your consideration.


I hope this helps.

bakunin
 

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UNBUFFER(1)						      General Commands Manual						       UNBUFFER(1)

NAME
unbuffer - unbuffer output SYNOPSIS
unbuffer program [ args ] INTRODUCTION
unbuffer disables the output buffering that occurs when program output is redirected from non-interactive programs. For example, suppose you are watching the output from a fifo by running it through od and then more. od -c /tmp/fifo | more You will not see anything until a full page of output has been produced. You can disable this automatic buffering as follows: unbuffer od -c /tmp/fifo | more Normally, unbuffer does not read from stdin. This simplifies use of unbuffer in some situations. To use unbuffer in a pipeline, use the -p flag. Example: process1 | unbuffer -p process2 | process3 CAVEATS
unbuffer -p may appear to work incorrectly if a process feeding input to unbuffer exits. Consider: process1 | unbuffer -p process2 | process3 If process1 exits, process2 may not yet have finished. It is impossible for unbuffer to know long to wait for process2 and process2 may not ever finish, for example, if it is a filter. For expediency, unbuffer simply exits when it encounters an EOF from either its input or process2. In order to have a version of unbuffer that worked in all situations, an oracle would be necessary. If you want an application-specific solution, workarounds or hand-coded Expect may be more suitable. For example, the following example shows how to allow grep to finish pro- cessing when the cat before it finishes first. Using cat to feed grep would never require unbuffer in real life. It is merely a place- holder for some imaginary process that may or may not finish. Similarly, the final cat at the end of the pipeline is also a placeholder for another process. $ cat /tmp/abcdef.log | grep abc | cat abcdef xxxabc defxxx $ cat /tmp/abcdef.log | unbuffer grep abc | cat $ (cat /tmp/abcdef.log ; sleep 1) | unbuffer grep abc | cat abcdef xxxabc defxxx $ BUGS
The man page is longer than the program. SEE ALSO
"Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs" by Don Libes, O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995. AUTHOR
Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology 1 June 1994 UNBUFFER(1)
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