UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,
Can anyone let me know the command to know the list of filenames that have string 31 in their 4th and 5th positions inside the file:

Code:

grep -l "31" main*.txt

The above grep lists all the files which have 31 at any position but I want filenames having 31 at position 4 and position 5.

This will list the files that having the 31 as in 4th and 5th position

Code:

 
ls -lrt ???31*

Hi
You can use this

I would suggest that the patterns from Hammadi dali are slightly wrong. The first finds lines that have 31 at position 5, the second at position 6, however if you want the characters "31" to start in either position 4 or position 5, you can merge the suggestion from Hammadi dali to be just:-

Code:

egrep "^...31|^....31" yourfilename

This is explained as the ^ marking the start of a line and the . being any single character. The | is a logical or so it will find either a line starting with any three characters then 31 or a line starting with any four characters then 31.


I hope that this helps
Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK

thank you rbatte1 for the rectification, commands were corrects before posting them. I don't know why I added a dot in each one !!

Yes, well it's more fun to make an error and fix it. I've been having 'fun' for over 20 years now and I'm still doing it frequently.



Robin

and each time we discover the error we say "oh! I'm really an idiot!!"