The egrep utility searches files for patterns. It uses regular
expressions that are almost identical to those available in awk
(see section Regular Expression Constants). It is used this way:
egrep [ options ] 'pattern' files ...
The pattern is a regexp.
In typical usage, the regexp is quoted to prevent the shell from expanding
any of the special characters as file name wildcards.
Normally, egrep prints the
lines that matched. If multiple file names are provided on the command
line, each output line is preceded by the name of the file and a colon.
The options are:
-c
-s
-v
egrep prints the lines that do
not match the pattern, and exits successfully if the pattern was not
matched.
-i
-l
-e pattern
This version uses the getopt library function
(see section Processing Command Line Options),
and the file transition library program
(see section Noting Data File Boundaries).
The program begins with a descriptive comment, and then a BEGIN rule
that processes the command line arguments with getopt. The `-i'
(ignore case) option is particularly easy with gawk; we just use the
IGNORECASE built in variable
(see section Built-in Variables).
# egrep.awk --- simulate egrep in awk
# Arnold Robbins, arnold@gnu.ai.mit.edu, Public Domain
# May 1993
# Options:
# -c count of lines
# -s silent - use exit value
# -v invert test, success if no match
# -i ignore case
# -l print filenames only
# -e argument is pattern
BEGIN {
while ((c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, "ce:svil")) != -1) {
if (c == "c")
count_only++
else if (c == "s")
no_print++
else if (c == "v")
invert++
else if (c == "i")
IGNORECASE = 1
else if (c == "l")
filenames_only++
else if (c == "e")
pattern = Optarg
else
usage()
}
Next comes the code that handles the egrep specific behavior. If no
pattern was supplied with `-e', the first non-option on the command
line is used. The awk command line arguments up to ARGV[Optind]
are cleared, so that awk won't try to process them as files. If no
files were specified, the standard input is used, and if multiple files were
specified, we make sure to note this so that the file names can precede the
matched lines in the output.
The last two lines are commented out, since they are not needed in
gawk. They should be uncommented if you have to use another version
of awk.
if (pattern == "")
pattern = ARGV[Optind++]
for (i = 1; i < Optind; i++)
ARGV[i] = ""
if (Optind >= ARGC) {
ARGV[1] = "-"
ARGC = 2
} else if (ARGC - Optind > 1)
do_filenames++
# if (IGNORECASE)
# pattern = tolower(pattern)
}
The next set of lines should be uncommented if you are not using
gawk. This rule translates all the characters in the input line
into lower-case if the `-i' option was specified. The rule is
commented out since it is not necessary with gawk.
#{
# if (IGNORECASE)
# $0 = tolower($0)
#}
The beginfile function is called by the rule in `ftrans.awk'
when each new file is processed. In this case, it is very simple; all it
does is initialize a variable fcount to zero. fcount tracks
how many lines in the current file matched the pattern.
function beginfile(junk)
{
fcount = 0
}
The endfile function is called after each file has been processed.
It is used only when the user wants a count of the number of lines that
matched. no_print will be true only if the exit status is desired.
count_only will be true if line counts are desired. egrep
will therefore only print line counts if printing and counting are enabled.
The output format must be adjusted depending upon the number of files to be
processed. Finally, fcount is added to total, so that we
know how many lines altogether matched the pattern.
function endfile(file)
{
if (! no_print && count_only)
if (do_filenames)
print file ":" fcount
else
print fcount
total += fcount
}
This rule does most of the work of matching lines. The variable
matches will be true if the line matched the pattern. If the user
wants lines that did not match, the sense of the matches is inverted
using the `!' operator. fcount is incremented with the value of
matches, which will be either one or zero, depending upon a
successful or unsuccessful match. If the line did not match, the
next statement just moves on to the next record.
There are several optimizations for performance in the following few lines
of code. If the user only wants exit status (no_print is true), and
we don't have to count lines, then it is enough to know that one line in
this file matched, and we can skip on to the next file with nextfile.
Along similar lines, if we are only printing file names, and we
don't need to count lines, we can print the file name, and then skip to the
next file with nextfile.
Finally, each line is printed, with a leading filename and colon if necessary.
{
matches = ($0 ~ pattern)
if (invert)
matches = ! matches
fcount += matches # 1 or 0
if (! matches)
next
if (no_print && ! count_only)
nextfile
if (filenames_only && ! count_only) {
print FILENAME
nextfile
}
if (do_filenames && ! count_only)
print FILENAME ":" $0
else if (! count_only)
print
}
The END rule takes care of producing the correct exit status. If
there were no matches, the exit status is one, otherwise it is zero.
END \
{
if (total == 0)
exit 1
exit 0
}
The usage function prints a usage message in case of invalid options
and then exits.
function usage( e)
{
e = "Usage: egrep [-csvil] [-e pat] [files ...]"
print e > "/dev/stderr"
exit 1
}
The variable e is used so that the function fits nicely
on the printed page.
Just a note on programming style. You may have noticed that the END
rule uses backslash continuation, with the open brace on a line by
itself. This is so that it more closely resembles the way functions
are written. Many of the examples
in this chapter
use this style. You can decide for yourself if you like writing
your BEGIN and END rules this way,
or not.
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