A BIG collection of Unix/Linux ‘grep’ command examples

By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: June 18, 2020

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Linux grep FAQ: Can you share some Linux/Unix grepcommand examples?

Sure. The name grepmeans "general regular expression parser", but you can think of
the grepcommand as a “search” command for Unix and Linux systems: It’s used to search for text
strings and regular expressions within one or more files.

I think it’s easiest to learn how to use the grep command by showing examples, so let’s dive right in.

this space intentionally left blank because of the long Table of Contents over there (and my poor
CSS skills) -->

Abridged grep command examples

First up, if you don’t like reading a bunch of text and just want to see a collection of grep commands,
this section is for you.

(If the Table of Contents over there on the right side is still in the way, click or tap the ‘hide’ link in
its title to hide it):

search for a string in one or more files

----------------------------------------
grep 'fred' /etc/passwd # search for lines containing 'fred' in /etc/passwd
grep fred /etc/passwd # quotes usually not when you don't use regex patterns
grep null *.scala # search multiple files
case-insensitive
----------------
grep -i joe users.txt # find joe, Joe, JOe, JOE, etc.

regular expressions
-------------------
grep '^fred' /etc/passwd # find 'fred', but only at the start of a line
grep '[FG]oo' * # find Foo or Goo in all files in the current dir
grep '[0-9][0-9][0-9]' * # find all lines in all files in the current dir with t

display matching filenames, not lines

-------------------------------------
grep -l StartInterval *.plist # show all filenames containing the string 'StartInterv
grep -il StartInterval *.plist # same thing, case-insensitive

show matching line numbers

--------------------------
grep -n we gettysburg-address.txt # show line numbers as well as the matching lines

lines before and after grep match

---------------------------------
grep -B5 "the living" gettysburg-address.txt # show all matches, and five lines befor
grep -A10 "the living" gettysburg-address.txt # show all matches, and ten lines after
grep -B5 -A5 "the living" gettysburg-address.txt # five lines before and ten lines after

reverse the meaning

-------------------
grep -v fred /etc/passwd # find any line *not* containing 'fred'
grep -vi fred /etc/passwd # same thing, case-insensitive

grep in a pipeline
------------------
ps auxwww | grep httpd # all processes containing 'httpd'
ps auxwww | grep -i java # all processes containing 'java', ignoring case
ls -al | grep '^d' # list all dirs in the current dir

search for multiple patterns

----------------------------
egrep 'apple|banana|orange' * # sear
egrep -i 'apple|banana|orange' * # same
egrep 'score|nation|liberty|equal' gettysburg-address.txt # all
locate -i calendar | grep Users | egrep -vi 'twiki|gif|shtml|drupal-7|java|PNG' # oh y
(see http://alvinalexander.com/linux-unix/linux-egrep-multiple-regular-expressions-re
 multiple search strings, multiple filename patterns
---------------------------------------------------
grep -li "jtable" $(find . -name "*.java,v" -exec grep -li "prevayl" {} \;) # find
# 'pre

grep + find
-----------
find . -type f -exec grep -il 'foo' {} \; # print all filenames of files under current d

recursive grep search

---------------------
grep -rl 'null' . # similar to the previous find command; does a
grep -ril 'null' /home/al/sarah /var/www # search multiple dirs
egrep -ril 'aja|alvin' . # multiple patterns, recursive
(see http://alvinalexander.com/linux-unix/recursive-grep-r-searching-egrep-find)

grep gzip files

---------------
zgrep foo myfile.gz # all lines containing the pattern 'foo'
zgrep 'GET /blog' access_log.gz # all lines containing 'GET /blog'
zgrep 'GET /blog' access_log.gz | more # same thing, case-insensitive

That's the short version of the grep examples. The rest of this document describes many of these
examples.

Searching for a text string in one file

This first grep command example searches for all occurrences of the text string 'fred' within
the /etc/passwd file. It will find and display all of the lines in this file that contain the text
string fred, including lines that contain usernames like "fred", and also other strings like "alfred":

grep 'fred' /etc/passwd

In a simple example like this, the quotes around the string fred aren't necessary, but they are
needed if you're searching for a string that contains spaces, and will also be needed when you get
into using regular expressions (search patterns).

Searching for a string in multiple files

Our next grep command example searches for all occurrences of the text string joe within all files of
the current directory:
 grep 'joe' *

The '*' wildcard matches all files in the current directory, and the grep output from this command
will show both (a) the matching filename and (b) all lines in all files that contain the string 'joe'.

As a quick note, instead of searching all file with the "*" wildcard, you can also use grep to search all
files in the current directory that end in the file extension .txt, like this:

grep 'joe' *.txt

Case-insensitive file searching with the Unix grep command

To perform a case-insensitive search with the grep command, just add the -i option, like this:

grep -i score gettysburg-address.txt

This grep search example matches the string "score", whether it is uppercase (SCORE), lowercase
(score), or any mix of the two (Score, SCore, etc.).

Reversing the meaning of a grep search

You can reverse the meaning of a Linux grep search with the -v option. For instance, to show all the
lines of my /etc/passwd file that don't contain the string fred, I'd issue this command:

grep -v fred /etc/passwd

Using grep in a Unix/Linux command pipeline

The grep command is often used in a Unix/Linux pipeline. For instance, to show all the
Apache httpd processes running on my Linux system, I use the grep command in a pipeline with
the pscommand:

ps auxwww | grep httpd

This returns the following output:

 root 17937 0.0 0.0 14760 6880 ? Ss Apr01 0:39 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 21538 0.0 0.0 24372 17108 ? S Apr03 0:01 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 24481 0.0 0.0 14760 6396 ? S Apr03 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 26089 0.0 0.0 24144 16876 ? S Apr03 0:01 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 27842 0.0 0.0 24896 17636 ? S Apr03 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 27843 0.0 0.0 24192 16936 ? S Apr03 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 27911 0.0 0.0 23888 16648 ? S Apr03 0:01 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 28280 0.0 0.0 24664 17256 ? S Apr03 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 30404 0.0 0.0 24360 17112 ? S Apr03 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 31895 0.0 0.0 14760 6296 ? S Apr03 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
root 31939 0.0 0.0 1848 548 pts/0 R+ Apr03 0:00 grep http

(I deleted about half of the "httpd -k start" lines from that output manually to save a little space.)

Similarly, here's how you can find all the Java processes running on your system using
the ps and grep commands in a Unix pipeline:

ps auxwww | grep -i java

In this example I've piped the output of the ps auxwww command into my grep command. The grep
command only prints the lines that have the string "java" in them; all other lines from
the pscommand are not printed.

One way to find all the sub-directories in the current directory is to mix the
Linux ls and grepcommands together in a pipe, like this:

ls -al | grep '^d'

Here I'm using grep to list only those lines where the first character in the line is the letter d.

Using the Linux grep command to search for multiple patterns at one time (egrep)

You can use a different version of the grep command to search for multiple patterns at one time. To
do this, just use the egrep command instead of grep, like this:
 egrep 'score|nation|liberty|equal' gettysburg-address.txt

This Unix egrep command searches the file named gettysburg-address.txt for the four strings
shown (score, nation, liberty, and equal). It returns any lines from the file that contain any of those
words.

I should also note that "egrep" stands for "extended grep", and as you can see, it lets you do things
like searching for multiple patterns at one time.

Searching for regular expressions (regex patterns) with grep

Of course the Linux grep command is much more powerful than this, and can handle very powerful
regular expressions (regex patterns). In a simple example, suppose you want to search for the
strings "Foo" or "Goo" in all files in the current directory. That grep command would be:

grep '[FG]oo' *

If you want to search for a sequence of three integers with grep you might use a command like this:

grep '[0-9][0-9][0-9]' *

This next grep command searches for all occurrences of the text string fred within
the /etc/passwdfile, but also requires that the "f" in the name "fred" be in the first column of each
record (that's what the caret character tells grep). Using this more-advanced search, a user named
"alfred" would not be matched, because the letter "a" will be in the first column:

grep '^fred' /etc/passwd

Regular expressions can get much, much more complicated (and powerful) than this, so I'll just
leave it here for now.

Display only filenames with a grep search

If you're looking through a lot of files for a pattern, and you just want to find the names of the files
that contain your pattern (or "patterns", as shown with egrep) -- but don't want to see each
individual grep pattern match -- just add the -l (lowercase letter L) to your grep command, like
this:
 grep -l StartInterval *.plist

This command doesn't show every line in every file that contains the string "StartInterval"; it just
shows the names of all the files that contain this string, like this:

com.apple.atrun.plist
com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch.plist
com.apple.locationd.plist
org.amavis.amavisd_cleanup.plist

Of course you can also combine grep command arguments, so if you didn't happen to know how to
capitalize "StartInterval" in that previous example, you could just add the -i argument to ignore
case, like this:

grep -il startinterval *.plist

and that would have worked just fine as well, returning the same results as the previous grep
command example.

Showing matching line numbers with Linux grep

To show the line numbers of the files that match your grep command, just add the -n option, like
this:

grep -n we gettysburg-address.txt

Searching my sample gettysburg-address.txt file, I get the following output from this command:

9:Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

22:that we should do this.
24:But in a larger sense we can not dedicate -
25:we can not consecrate -
26:we can not hallow this ground.
29:have consecrated it far above our poor power
33:what we say here,
43:we take increased devotion to that cause
46:that we here highly resolve that these dead
grep before/after - Showing lines before or after your grep pattern match

After a recent comment, I just learned that you can display lines before or after your grep pattern
match, which is also very cool. To display five lines before the phrase "the living" in my sample
document, use the -B argument, like this:

grep -B 5 "the living" gettysburg-address.txt

This grep command example returns this output:

The world will little note,

nor long remember,
what we say here,
but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living,

Similarly, to show the five lines after that same search phrase, use the -A argument with your Unix
grep command, like this:

grep -A 5 "the living" gettysburg-address.txt

This grep "after" command returns the following output:

It is for us, the living,

rather to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they have,
thus far, so nobly carried on.
It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us -

Of course you can use any number after the -A and -B options, I'm just using the number five here
as an example.
Power file searching with find and grep

A lot of times I know that the string "foo" exists in a file somewhere in my directory tree, but I can't
remember where. In those cases I roll out a power command, a Linux find command that uses grep
to search what it finds:

find . -type f -exec grep -il 'foo' {} \;

This is a special way of mixing the Linux find and grep commands together to search every file in
every subdirectory of my current location. It searches for the string "foo" in every file below the
current directory, in a case-insensitive manner. This find/grep command can be broken down like
this:

"." means "look in the current directory"

-type f means "look in files only"

-exec grep -il foo means "search for the string 'foo' in a case-insensitive
manner, and return the matching line and filename when a match is found
{} \; is a little bizarre syntax that you need to add to the end of your find
command whenever you add the -exec option. I try to think of it as a placeholder
for the filenames the find command finds.

Note that on Mac OS X systems you may be able to use the mdfind command instead of
this find/grep combination command. The mdfind command is a command-line equivalent of the
Spotlight search functionality.

Related Unix/Linux grep commands and tutorials

I hope you enjoyed this Linux grep command tutorial and our grep examples.

There are at least two other commands related to grep that you should at least be aware of.
The fgrep command stands for "fast grep", or "fixed strings", depending on who you talk to.
The egrepcommand stands for "extended grep", and lets you use even more powerful regular
expressions.

The strings command is good at finding printable strings in a binary file.

The locate command is more related to the find command, but I thought I would note that it is
good at finding files in the entire filesystem when you know the filename, or part of the filename.

And as I mentioned in the previous section Mac OS X systems have the mdfind command. As a
practical matter I use plain old grep 99% of the time.
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