An egrep example with multiple regular expressions

Summary: How to use the Linux egrep command with multiple regular expressions (regex patterns).

As a quick note here today, I just used the Linux egrep command to perform a case-insensitive search on multiple regular expressions (regex patterns). Really, what I did was a little more complicated:

locate -i calendar | grep Users | egrep -vi 'twiki|gif|shtml|drupal-7|java|PNG'

As you can see from that command, I did this:

• Used to locate command with the case-insensitive option to find all files with the string “calendar” in them.
• Used the grep command so the output would only display files and directories with the string “Users” in them.
• Used the egrep command with multiple regex patterns to reduce the output much more. I used the -v argument to perform the “opposite” meaning of a normal egrepcommand, so strings with these patterns were not shown; and also used the -iargument to perform a case insensitive egrep search here.

While my original locate -i calendar command shows nearly 3,000 files, the locate command combined with grep and egrep in this manner shows only 15 files.

An easier egrep command

Before I go away, here’s an easier egrep command to look at:

egrep 'apple|banana|orange' *

That egrep command searches for those three strings (regular expressions, really) in all files in the current directory. This next command does the same thing, but in a case-insensitive manner:

egrep -i 'apple|banana|orange' *

3 UNIX / Linux egrep Command Examples

What is egrep?

egrep is same as ‘grep -E’ or ‘grep –extended-regex’, which uses extended regular expression.

3 egrep Examples

First create the following employee.txt sample file.

100  Thomas  Manager    Sales       $5,000
200  Jason   Developer  Technology  $5,500
300  Sanjay  Sysadmin   Technology  $7,000
400  Nisha   Manager    Marketing   $9,500
500  Randy   DBA        Technology  $6,000

1. Search for Specific Characters

The following example searches for either J, or N, or R.

$ egrep [JNR] employee.txt
200  Jason   Developer  Technology  $5,500
400  Nisha   Manager    Marketing   $9,500
500  Randy   DBA        Technology  $6,000

2. Search for a Range

The following example searches the range 6-9. i.e It searches for 6, or 7, or 8, or 9.

$ egrep [6-9] employee.txt
300  Sanjay  Sysadmin   Technology  $7,000
400  Nisha   Manager    Marketing   $9,500
500  Randy   DBA        Technology  $6,000

3. egrep OR Example

Pipe symbol is used for egrep OR. The following searches for either Marketing or DBA.

$ egrep 'Marketing|DBA' employee.txt
400  Nisha   Manager    Marketing   $9,500
500  Randy   DBA        Technology  $6,000

Note: egrep supports the extended grep characters: +, ?, |, and ( )

Syntax and Options

Syntax:

egrep [options] [regexp] [files]

The options of egrep are same as grep. Few of them are shown below.

Short Option	Long Option	Option Description
-c	–count	Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching lines for each input file. With the -v, –invert-match option (see below), count non-matching lines.
-L	–files-without-match	Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which no output would normally have been printed. The scanning will stop on the first match.
-l	–files-with-matches	Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which output would normally have been printed. The scanning will stop on the first match.
-m	–max-count	Stop reading a file after NUM matching lines. If the input is standard input from a regular file, and NUM matching lines are output, grep ensures that the standard input is positioned to just after the last matching line before exiting, regardless of the presence of trailing context lines.
-o	–only-matching	Print only the matched (non-empty) parts of a matching line, with each such part on a separate output line.

A few of examples:

• egrep ‘^(0|1)+ [a-zA-Z]+$’ searchfile.txt

match all lines in searchfile.txt which start with a non-empty bitstring, followed by a space, followed by a non-empty alphabetic word which ends the line

• egrep -c ‘^1|01$’ lots_o_bits

count the number of lines in lots_o_bits which either start with 1 or end with 01

• egrep -c ’10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*1′ lots_o_bits

count the number of lines with at least eleven 1’s

• egrep -i ‘\<the\>’ myletter.txt

list all the lines in myletter.txt containing the word the insensitive of case.

fgrep Command

Purpose

Searches a file for a literal string.

Description

The fgrep command searches the input files specified by the File Parameter (standard input by default) for lines matching a pattern. The fgrep command searches specifically for Pattern parameters that are fixed strings. The fgrep command displays the file containing the matched line if you specify more than one file in the File parameter.

Examples

1. To search several files for a simple string of characters:

   fgrep"strcpy"*.c

   This searches for the string strcpy in all files in the current directory with names ending in the .c character string.

2. To count the number of lines that match a pattern:

   fgrep-c"{"pgm.c
   fgrep-c"}"pgm.c

   This displays the number of lines in pgm.c that contain left and right braces.

   If you do not put more than one { (left brace) or one } (right brace) on a line in your C programs, and if the braces are properly balanced, the two numbers displayed are the same. If the numbers are not the same, you can display the lines that contain braces in the order that they occur in the file with:

   egrep "{|}" pgm.c

3. To display the names of files that contain a pattern:

   fgrep-l"strcpy"*.c

   This searches the files in the current directory that end with .cand displays the names of those files that contain the strcpy string.