RE: grep problems

[Jörg Schaible <Joerg dot Schaible at Elsag-Solutions dot com>]

Hi Mark,

Mark.Bevan@gwent.wales.nhs.uk wrote on Monday, June 14, 2004 9:47 AM:

> I was having some trouble using grep to look for text in files.
> 
> From some tests it looks like meta characters cause the problem to
> show itself : 
> 
> C:\temp>type test.txt
> text
> 
> C:\temp>grep test test.txt
> text
> 
> C:\temp>grep text *.txt
> test.txt:text
> 
> C:\temp>grep text \temp\test.txt
> text

I don't know, why this works, but you may have created this file ("temptest.txt") by chance ...

> C:\temp>grep text \temp\*.txt
> GREP: temp*.txt: No such file or directory

grep is right. You have no file "temp*.txt" in your current directory

> C:\temp>grep text ..\temp\*.txt
> GREP: ..temp*.txt: No such file or directory

grep is right. You have no file "..temp*.txt" in your current directory


> C:\temp>grep text c:\temp\*.txt
> GREP: c:\temp\*.txt: No such file or directory

grep is right. You have no file "C:temp*.txt" in your current directory (assuming you're on C:)
 
> C:\temp>grep text ../temp/*.txt
> ../temp/test.txt:hello
> 
> C:\temp>grep text /temp/*.txt
> GREP: /temp/*.txt: No such file or directory

grep is right. You have no file "C:/cygwin/temp/test.txt" (assuming C:/cygwin is your root -- set as default)

> C:\temp>grep text c:/temp/*.txt
> c:/temp/test.txt:text
> 
> I have upgraded to latest release of Cygwin and this has not
> changed things. I have tried the above on a Windows 98 and
> Windows XP system as well - same results.
> 
> Any ideas how I get around this problem ?

Learn the syntax. Backslashes have to be escaped by a backslash
;-)

-- Jörg

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