Can You grep for text in man pages?

Can You grep for text in man pages?

You should not use grep on man pages. Man pages are encoded (not in plain English) the contents will not match the sentence you want to search for. Assuming the program man is using less to show man pages there is a way to search with the help of less.

When to use grep on a regular file?

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. This enables a calling process to resume a search.

How does grep search for patterns in a file?

DESCRIPTION top grep searches for PATTERNS in each FILE. PATTERNS is one or more patterns separated by newline characters, and grep prints each line that matches a pattern. Typically PATTERNS should be quoted when grep is used in a shell command.

Where do I find the version number of grep?

Print the version number of grep to the standard output stream. This version number should be included in all bug reports (see below). Interpret PATTERN as an extended regular expression (ERE, see below). ( -E is specified by POSIX .)

What’s the easiest way to find a word in grep?

You can try looking for the word of your choice by putting blanks in front of and behind the word, but you then run the risk of missing your target text if it sits at the beginning or the end of a line. Here are two grep commands that will do just what you want. The easiest of the two commands is to use grep’s -w option.

Is the grep command more versatile than I remembered?

The grep command is a lot more versatile than I remembered. It pays to read man pages now and then. These are very useful options! Join the Network World communities on Facebook and LinkedIn to comment on topics that are top of mind. Sandra Henry-Stocker has been administering Unix systems for more than 30 years.