Piping to grep with pbpaste

 
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Operating Systems OS X (Apple) Piping to grep with pbpaste
# 1  
Old 05-05-2018
Piping to grep with pbpaste

cat file

Code:
1 aaa
2 bbb
3 ccc
4 ddd

In TextEdit, I then copy the characters “ccc” to the clipboard. The problem is that the following command gives no output:

Code:
bash-3.2$ pbpaste | grep - file

Desired output:
Code:
3 ccc

What should the syntax be for that command? I am using MacOS El Capitan with Quartz 2.7.9.

Thanks!

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 05-05-2018 at 02:52 PM..
# 2  
Old 05-05-2018
Try:
Code:
grep -f <(pbpaste) file

or
Code:
grep "$(pbpaste)" file





--
Note: some greps can also do this:
Code:
pbpaste | grep -f - file

, but not MacOS' BSD grep.

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 05-05-2018 at 03:02 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to Scrutinizer For This Post:
# 3  
Old 05-05-2018
Not sure I understand, but if you want the paste board contents piped on stdin to be grepped in file, try grep -f- file

This should work with simple strings like the one you showed, but be careful if there are characters with special meanings in regexes.
# 4  
Old 05-06-2018
Note also that on macOS, the grep utility only works on complete lines of text. If the text you selected does not include a <newline> character at the end of the line you selected, pbpaste will only output a partial line of output without a line terminating <newline> character.
This User Gave Thanks to Don Cragun For This Post:
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