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<title>pcregrep specification</title>
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<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
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This HTML document has been generated automatically from the original man page.
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If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the man page, in case the
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conversion went wrong.<br>
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<li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">SYNOPSIS</a>
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<li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">DESCRIPTION</a>
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<li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">OPTIONS</a>
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<li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">LONG OPTIONS</a>
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<li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">DIAGNOSTICS</a>
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<li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">AUTHOR</a>
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<br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">SYNOPSIS</a><br>
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<b>pcregrep [-Vcfhilnrsuvx] [long options] [pattern] [file1 file2 ...]</b>
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<br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">DESCRIPTION</a><br>
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<b>pcregrep</b> searches files for character patterns, in the same way as other
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grep commands do, but it uses the PCRE regular expression library to support
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patterns that are compatible with the regular expressions of Perl 5. See
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<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
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for a full description of syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that
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A pattern must be specified on the command line unless the <b>-f</b> option is
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If no files are specified, <b>pcregrep</b> reads the standard input. By default,
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each line that matches the pattern is copied to the standard output, and if
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there is more than one file, the file name is printed before each line of
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output. However, there are options that can change how <b>pcregrep</b> behaves.
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Lines are limited to BUFSIZ characters. BUFSIZ is defined in <b><stdio.h></b>.
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The newline character is removed from the end of each line before it is matched
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<br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">OPTIONS</a><br>
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Write the version number of the PCRE library being used to the standard error
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Do not print individual lines; instead just print a count of the number of
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lines that would otherwise have been printed. If several files are given, a
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count is printed for each of them.
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<b>-f</b><i>filename</i>
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Read a number of patterns from the file, one per line, and match all of them
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against each line of input. A line is output if any of the patterns match it.
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When <b>-f</b> is used, no pattern is taken from the command line; all arguments
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are treated as file names. There is a maximum of 100 patterns. Trailing white
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space is removed, and blank lines are ignored. An empty file contains no
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patterns and therefore matches nothing.
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Suppress printing of filenames when searching multiple files.
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Ignore upper/lower case distinctions during comparisons.
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Instead of printing lines from the files, just print the names of the files
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containing lines that would have been printed. Each file name is printed
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once, on a separate line.
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Precede each line by its line number in the file.
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If any file is a directory, recursively scan the files it contains. Without
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<b>-r</b> a directory is scanned as a normal file.
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Work silently, that is, display nothing except error messages.
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The exit status indicates whether any matches were found.
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Operate in UTF-8 mode. This option is available only if PCRE has been compiled
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with UTF-8 support. Both the pattern and each subject line are assumed to be
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valid strings of UTF-8 characters.
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Invert the sense of the match, so that lines which do <i>not</i> match the
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pattern are now the ones that are found.
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Force the pattern to be anchored (it must start matching at the beginning of
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the line) and in addition, require it to match the entire line. This is
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equivalent to having ^ and $ characters at the start and end of each
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alternative branch in the regular expression.
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<br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">LONG OPTIONS</a><br>
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Long forms of all the options are available, as in GNU grep. They are shown in
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-l --files-with-matches
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In addition, --file=<i>filename</i> is equivalent to -f<i>filename</i>, and
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--help shows the list of options and then exits.
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<br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">DIAGNOSTICS</a><br>
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Exit status is 0 if any matches were found, 1 if no matches were found, and 2
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for syntax errors or inacessible files (even if matches were found).
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<br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a><br>
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Philip Hazel <ph10@cam.ac.uk>
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University Computing Service
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Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
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Last updated: 03 February 2003
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Copyright © 1997-2003 University of Cambridge.
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