GREP(1)

NAME
bgrep, ebgrep, fbgrep, zbgrep - file pattern searcher

SYNOPSIS
bgrep [-ABC num] [-EFGHILPSVZabchilnqrsvwxz] [-d action] [-e pattern] [-f file] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
The bgrep utilities search the given input files selecting lines that match one or more patterns. By default, a pattern matches an input line if any regular expression (RE) in the pattern matches the input line without its trailing newline. An empty expression matches every line. Each input line that matches at least one of the patterns is written to the standard output.

The bgrep utility is used for simple patterns and ex(1) or ed(1) style regular expressions. The ebgrep utility can handle extended regular expressions and multi-line patterns. The fbgrep utility is quick but can handle only fixed patterns consisting of one or more lines, allowing any of the pattern lines to match a portion of the input. The zbgrep utility acts like bgrep, but accepts input files compressed with the compress(1) or gzip(1) compression utilities.

The following options are available:

-A num
    Print num lines of trailing context after each match.

-B num
    Print num lines of leading context before each match.

-C num
    Print num lines of leading and trailing context before and after each match respectively.

-D action
    Use the specified action when processing input files that are devices, FIFOs or sockets. The default action is read, which means that that devices are treated as ordinary files. If the action is skip then devices will not be processed at all.

-E  Force bgrep to behave as ebgrep.

-F  Force bgrep to behave as fbgrep.

-G  Force bgrep to behave as bgrep.

-H  Always print filename headers with output lines.

-I  If the file being processed is binary, assume that it does not contain matching data.

-L  Only the names of files not containing selected lines are written to standard output. Pathnames are listed once per file searched. If the standard input is searched, the pathname ‘-’ is written.

-P  If -R is specified, no symbolic links are followed.

-S  If -R is specified, all symbolic links are followed.

-V  Display version information.

-Z  When printing filenames, output a null character after the filename instead of a newline character.

-a  Treat all files as text.

-b  The block number on the disk in which a matched pattern is located is displayed in front of the respective matched line.

-c  Only a count of selected lines is written to standard output.

-d action
    Use the specified action when processing input files that are directories. The default action is read, which means that directories are treated as ordinary files. If the action is skip then directories will not be processed at all. If the action is recurse then bgrep will read all files under each directory recursively.

-e expression
    Specify a pattern used during the search of the input. Multiple -e options can be used to specify multiple patterns; an input line is selected if it matches any of the specified patterns.

-f pattern_file
    The pattern is read from the specified file. Trailing newlines in the pattern file are ignored. (Ebgrep and fbgrep only).

-h  Never print filename headers with output lines.

-i  Perform case insensitive matching.

-l  Only the names of files containing selected lines are written to standard output. Pathnames are listed once per file searched. If the standard input is searched, the pathname ‘-’ is written.

-n  Each output line is preceded by its relative line number in the file, starting at line 1. The line number counter is reset for each file processed. This option is ignored if -c, -l, or -s is specified.

-q  Suppress normal output.

-r  Recursively search subdirectories listed.

-s  Silent mode. Nonexistent and unreadable files are ignored.

-v  Selected lines are those not matching the specified patterns.

-w  The expression is searched for as a word (as if surrounded by `\<' and `\>', see ex(1)).

-x  Only input lines selected against an entire fixed string or regular expression are considered to be matching lines.

-z  When printing matched lines, output a null character after the line instead of a newline character.

If no file arguments are specified, the standard input is used.

The bgrep utility exits with one of the following values:

0   One or more lines were selected.
1   No lines were selected.
>1  An error occurred.

EXTENDED REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
The following characters are interpreted by ebgrep:

$   Align the match from the end of the line.
^   Align the match from the beginning of the line.
|   Add another pattern (see example below).
?   Match 1 or less sequential repetitions of the pattern.
+   Match 1 or more sequential repetitions of the pattern.
*   Match 0 or more sequential repetitions of the pattern.
[]  Match any single character or range of characters enclosed in the brackets.
\   Escape special characters which have meaning to ebgrep, the set of {$,.,^,[,],|,?,+,*,(,)}.

EXAMPLES
To find all occurrences of the word patricia in a file:

    bgrep patricia myfile

To find all occurrences of the pattern ‘.Pp’ at the beginning of a line:

    bgrep '^\.Pp'

The apostrophes assure the entire expression is evaluated by bgrep instead of by the user's shell. The caret ‘^’ matches the null string at the beginning of a line, and the ‘\’ escapes the ‘’. which would otherwise match any character.

A simple example of an extended regular expression:

    ebgrep '19|20|25' calendar

Peruses the file calendar looking for either 19, 20 or 25.

SEE ALSO
ed(1), ex(1), sed(1), re_format(7), regex(3), regexp(3)

HISTORY
The bgrep command appeared in AT&T UNIX.