Exact match question


 
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# 1  
Old 09-20-2010
Exact match question

Hi,
I have a file like follows
.
.
.
White.Jack.is.going.home
Black.Jack.is.going.home
Red.Jack.is.going.home
Jack.is.going.home
.
.
.
when I make:
cat <file> | grep -w "Jack.is.going.home"

it gives:
White.Jack.is.going.home
Black.Jack.is.going.home
Red.Jack.is.going.home
Jack.is.going.home

but, the line I want to see is only
Jack.is.going.home

Can you help please ?

Thanks in advance,
salih
# 2  
Old 09-20-2010
Code:
cat <file> | grep -w "^Jack.is.going.home$"

This User Gave Thanks to a27wang For This Post:
# 3  
Old 09-20-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by a27wang
Code:
cat <file> | grep -w "^Jack.is.going.home$"

Thank you very much a27wang, it worked Smilie
# 4  
Old 09-20-2010
Useless cat
Code:
grep -w "^Jack.is.going.home$" file

# 5  
Old 09-20-2010
If you truly want an exact match, you need to escape the "." wildcard in the regular expression. Or, you could use fixed string matching against an entire line:
Code:
grep -Fx Jack.is.going.home file

Perhaps that's a bit pedantic, but I think it's worth mentioning. In some cases it could actually be important (though judging from this sample data, probably not in this one).

Regards,
Alister
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