UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm using the below to grep two strings from my log file.

Code:

 grep "09:49.*yellow" out.log

Now, i wish to search for all times within 3 minutes of the greped time i.e

All time starting from 09:49:00 to 09:51:00.

Currently it searches only for 09:49:* and also searches incorrect entry like 05:09:49.

OS: SunOS mymac 5.10 Generic_148888-04 sun4v sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise-T5220

Please help.

Try:

Code:

/usr/xpg4/bin/grep -E '09:(49|50|51):.*yellow'

You did not get my question. The time i need to grep keeps changing so, what if the time is 09:59 ?

How shall we grep so that these timings are considered 09:59, 10:00, 10:01 ?

So, i need a generic query for any time on a 24 hr clock !!

It is not an incorrect entry, grep did exactly what it was designed for, you did a

Code:

grep "09:49.*yellow" out.log

and so 05:09:49. matches! The true issue is you not giving a better pattern, and here we cannot help you since you have not submitted any sample so we can see what you are up to, Scrutinsers submission is pefectly valid with the little info you gave so far (even if I guessed where the issues would be...) so next time I see a post from you like above, be sure I will close the thread a give you a warning.

I understand that i was not very precise in putting my question forward. I will open a new thread and post my problem better documented.

Absolutely correct!

True. In fact it will also match "09:49blah-blubb-foo-bar-whatnot-yellow" because ".*" in regexps means "any number of any character(s)" and should be used only with extreme caution.

This regexp is - most likely, because lacking any documentation of the problem we are left to guessing - completely screwed from the beginning and perhaps never did what it should do.

Moderator's Comments:

My standard suggestion in this case is: first, learn to analyze your problem clearly and concisely. This will already solve most problems, because they are not lack of knowledge, but lack of ability to bring the facts into a harmonic order. Second, as there are still some problem left for practically everybody, learn to present your problem concisely. Right now we do not know which shell you use (which might influence the best way to solve what you want to do) and we haven't seen yet a sample of your input data. As a last - but nevertheless highly important - point: you can expect hints, pointers, even attempts at solutions from us, but we won't do your work for you! This means, first and foremost, that you should try to understand the offered solutions and maybe modify them to fit your needs. Just sitting there, pasting what we write here into a shell and writing back "doesn't work" once it doesn't solve all your problems immediately isn't going to cut it. There might be others who see it differently but i for myself tend to ignore threads with questions from such people over time. I am sure that i am not alone with this habit. You might think about that.

bakunin

I wish to grep for time and a string in a log file.

The time to grep for is in this format hh:mm with a 24 hrs clock cycle.

The log file has the time in this format hh:mm:ss

The search should yield only those lines that matches both the string as well as any time between the grepped time + 3 mins.

For example: grep for time [23:59] and string [yellow] should yield all the lines that contain yellow as well as any time between 23:59:00 to 00:02:00 i.e 23:59 +3 mins

My OS is

Code:

SunOS mymac 5.10 Generic_148888-04 sun4v sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise-T5220