pcregrep(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SUPPORT FOR COMPRESSED FILES | BINARY FILES | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | NEWLINES | OPTIONS COMPATIBILITY | OPTIONS WITH DATA | MATCHING ERRORS | DIAGNOSTICS | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | REVISION | COLOPHON

PCREGREP(1)              General Commands Manual             PCREGREP(1)

NAME         top

       pcregrep - a grep with Perl-compatible regular expressions.

SYNOPSIS         top

       pcregrep [options] [long options] [pattern] [path1 path2 ...]

DESCRIPTION         top


       pcregrep searches files for character patterns, in the same way
       as other grep commands do, but it uses the PCRE regular
       expression library to support patterns that are compatible with
       the regular expressions of Perl 5. See pcresyntax(3) for a quick-
       reference summary of pattern syntax, or pcrepattern(3) for a full
       description of the syntax and semantics of the regular
       expressions that PCRE supports.

       Patterns, whether supplied on the command line or in a separate
       file, are given without delimiters. For example:

         pcregrep Thursday /etc/motd

       If you attempt to use delimiters (for example, by surrounding a
       pattern with slashes, as is common in Perl scripts), they are
       interpreted as part of the pattern. Quotes can of course be used
       to delimit patterns on the command line because they are
       interpreted by the shell, and indeed quotes are required if a
       pattern contains white space or shell metacharacters.

       The first argument that follows any option settings is treated as
       the single pattern to be matched when neither -e nor -f is
       present.  Conversely, when one or both of these options are used
       to specify patterns, all arguments are treated as path names. At
       least one of -e, -f, or an argument pattern must be provided.

       If no files are specified, pcregrep reads the standard input. The
       standard input can also be referenced by a name consisting of a
       single hyphen.  For example:

         pcregrep some-pattern /file1 - /file3

       By default, each line that matches a pattern is copied to the
       standard output, and if there is more than one file, the file
       name is output at the start of each line, followed by a colon.
       However, there are options that can change how pcregrep behaves.
       In particular, the -M option makes it possible to search for
       patterns that span line boundaries. What defines a line boundary
       is controlled by the -N (--newline) option.

       The amount of memory used for buffering files that are being
       scanned is controlled by a parameter that can be set by the
       --buffer-size option.  The default value for this parameter is
       specified when pcregrep is built, with the default default being
       20K. A block of memory three times this size is used (to allow
       for buffering "before" and "after" lines). An error occurs if a
       line overflows the buffer.

       Patterns can be no longer than 8K or BUFSIZ bytes, whichever is
       the greater.  BUFSIZ is defined in <stdio.h>. When there is more
       than one pattern (specified by the use of -e and/or -f), each
       pattern is applied to each line in the order in which they are
       defined, except that all the -e patterns are tried before the -f
       patterns.

       By default, as soon as one pattern matches a line, no further
       patterns are considered. However, if --colour (or --color) is
       used to colour the matching substrings, or if --only-matching,
       --file-offsets, or --line-offsets is used to output only the part
       of the line that matched (either shown literally, or as an
       offset), scanning resumes immediately following the match, so
       that further matches on the same line can be found. If there are
       multiple patterns, they are all tried on the remainder of the
       line, but patterns that follow the one that matched are not tried
       on the earlier part of the line.

       This behaviour means that the order in which multiple patterns
       are specified can affect the output when one of the above options
       is used. This is no longer the same behaviour as GNU grep, which
       now manages to display earlier matches for later patterns (as
       long as there is no overlap).

       Patterns that can match an empty string are accepted, but empty
       string matches are never recognized. An example is the pattern
       "(super)?(man)?", in which all components are optional. This
       pattern finds all occurrences of both "super" and "man"; the
       output differs from matching with "super|man" when only the
       matching substrings are being shown.

       If the LC_ALL or LC_CTYPE environment variable is set, pcregrep
       uses the value to set a locale when calling the PCRE library.
       The --locale option can be used to override this.

SUPPORT FOR COMPRESSED FILES         top


       It is possible to compile pcregrep so that it uses libz or libbz2
       to read files whose names end in .gz or .bz2, respectively. You
       can find out whether your binary has support for one or both of
       these file types by running it with the --help option. If the
       appropriate support is not present, files are treated as plain
       text. The standard input is always so treated.

BINARY FILES         top


       By default, a file that contains a binary zero byte within the
       first 1024 bytes is identified as a binary file, and is processed
       specially. (GNU grep also identifies binary files in this
       manner.) See the --binary-files option for a means of changing
       the way binary files are handled.

OPTIONS         top


       The order in which some of the options appear can affect the
       output. For example, both the -h and -l options affect the
       printing of file names. Whichever comes later in the command line
       will be the one that takes effect. Similarly, except where noted
       below, if an option is given twice, the later setting is used.
       Numerical values for options may be followed by K or M, to
       signify multiplication by 1024 or 1024*1024 respectively.

       --     This terminates the list of options. It is useful if the
              next item on the command line starts with a hyphen but is
              not an option. This allows for the processing of patterns
              and filenames that start with hyphens.

       -A number, --after-context=number
              Output number lines of context after each matching line.
              If filenames and/or line numbers are being output, a
              hyphen separator is used instead of a colon for the
              context lines. A line containing "--" is output between
              each group of lines, unless they are in fact contiguous in
              the input file. The value of number is expected to be
              relatively small. However, pcregrep guarantees to have up
              to 8K of following text available for context output.

       -a, --text
              Treat binary files as text. This is equivalent to
              --binary-files=text.

       -B number, --before-context=number
              Output number lines of context before each matching line.
              If filenames and/or line numbers are being output, a
              hyphen separator is used instead of a colon for the
              context lines. A line containing "--" is output between
              each group of lines, unless they are in fact contiguous in
              the input file. The value of number is expected to be
              relatively small. However, pcregrep guarantees to have up
              to 8K of preceding text available for context output.

       --binary-files=word
              Specify how binary files are to be processed. If the word
              is "binary" (the default), pattern matching is performed
              on binary files, but the only output is "Binary file
              <name> matches" when a match succeeds. If the word is
              "text", which is equivalent to the -a or --text option,
              binary files are processed in the same way as any other
              file. In this case, when a match succeeds, the output may
              be binary garbage, which can have nasty effects if sent to
              a terminal. If the word is "without-match", which is
              equivalent to the -I option, binary files are not
              processed at all; they are assumed not to be of interest.

       --buffer-size=number
              Set the parameter that controls how much memory is used
              for buffering files that are being scanned.

       -C number, --context=number
              Output number lines of context both before and after each
              matching line.  This is equivalent to setting both -A and
              -B to the same value.

       -c, --count
              Do not output individual lines from the files that are
              being scanned; instead output the number of lines that
              would otherwise have been shown. If no lines are selected,
              the number zero is output. If several files are are being
              scanned, a count is output for each of them. However, if
              the --files-with-matches option is also used, only those
              files whose counts are greater than zero are listed. When
              -c is used, the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored.

       --colour, --color
              If this option is given without any data, it is equivalent
              to "--colour=auto".  If data is required, it must be given
              in the same shell item, separated by an equals sign.

       --colour=value, --color=value
              This option specifies under what circumstances the parts
              of a line that matched a pattern should be coloured in the
              output. By default, the output is not coloured. The value
              (which is optional, see above) may be "never", "always",
              or "auto". In the latter case, colouring happens only if
              the standard output is connected to a terminal. More
              resources are used when colouring is enabled, because
              pcregrep has to search for all possible matches in a line,
              not just one, in order to colour them all.

              The colour that is used can be specified by setting the
              environment variable PCREGREP_COLOUR or PCREGREP_COLOR.
              The value of this variable should be a string of two
              numbers, separated by a semicolon. They are copied
              directly into the control string for setting colour on a
              terminal, so it is your responsibility to ensure that they
              make sense. If neither of the environment variables is
              set, the default is "1;31", which gives red.

       -D action, --devices=action
              If an input path is not a regular file or a directory,
              "action" specifies how it is to be processed. Valid values
              are "read" (the default) or "skip" (silently skip the
              path).

       -d action, --directories=action
              If an input path is a directory, "action" specifies how it
              is to be processed.  Valid values are "read" (the default
              in non-Windows environments, for compatibility with GNU
              grep), "recurse" (equivalent to the -r option), or "skip"
              (silently skip the path, the default in Windows
              environments). In the "read" case, directories are read as
              if they were ordinary files. In some operating systems the
              effect of reading a directory like this is an immediate
              end-of-file; in others it may provoke an error.

       -e pattern, --regex=pattern, --regexp=pattern
              Specify a pattern to be matched. This option can be used
              multiple times in order to specify several patterns. It
              can also be used as a way of specifying a single pattern
              that starts with a hyphen. When -e is used, no argument
              pattern is taken from the command line; all arguments are
              treated as file names. There is no limit to the number of
              patterns. They are applied to each line in the order in
              which they are defined until one matches.

              If -f is used with -e, the command line patterns are
              matched first, followed by the patterns from the file(s),
              independent of the order in which these options are
              specified. Note that multiple use of -e is not the same as
              a single pattern with alternatives. For example, X|Y finds
              the first character in a line that is X or Y, whereas if
              the two patterns are given separately, with X first,
              pcregrep finds X if it is present, even if it follows Y in
              the line. It finds Y only if there is no X in the line.
              This matters only if you are using -o or --colo(u)r to
              show the part(s) of the line that matched.

       --exclude=pattern
              Files (but not directories) whose names match the pattern
              are skipped without being processed. This applies to all
              files, whether listed on the command line, obtained from
              --file-list, or by scanning a directory. The pattern is a
              PCRE regular expression, and is matched against the final
              component of the file name, not the entire path. The -F,
              -w, and -x options do not apply to this pattern. The
              option may be given any number of times in order to
              specify multiple patterns. If a file name matches both an
              --include and an --exclude pattern, it is excluded. There
              is no short form for this option.

       --exclude-from=filename
              Treat each non-empty line of the file as the data for an
              --exclude option. What constitutes a newline when reading
              the file is the operating system's default. The --newline
              option has no effect on this option. This option may be
              given more than once in order to specify a number of files
              to read.

       --exclude-dir=pattern
              Directories whose names match the pattern are skipped
              without being processed, whatever the setting of the
              --recursive option. This applies to all directories,
              whether listed on the command line, obtained from --file-
              list, or by scanning a parent directory. The pattern is a
              PCRE regular expression, and is matched against the final
              component of the directory name, not the entire path. The
              -F, -w, and -x options do not apply to this pattern. The
              option may be given any number of times in order to
              specify more than one pattern. If a directory matches both
              --include-dir and --exclude-dir, it is excluded. There is
              no short form for this option.

       -F, --fixed-strings
              Interpret each data-matching pattern as a list of fixed
              strings, separated by newlines, instead of as a regular
              expression. What constitutes a newline for this purpose is
              controlled by the --newline option. The -w (match as a
              word) and -x (match whole line) options can be used with
              -F.  They apply to each of the fixed strings. A line is
              selected if any of the fixed strings are found in it
              (subject to -w or -x, if present). This option applies
              only to the patterns that are matched against the contents
              of files; it does not apply to patterns specified by any
              of the --include or --exclude options.

       -f filename, --file=filename
              Read patterns from the file, one per line, and match them
              against each line of input. What constitutes a newline
              when reading the file is the operating system's default.
              The --newline option has no effect on this option.
              Trailing white space is removed from each line, and blank
              lines are ignored. An empty file contains no patterns and
              therefore matches nothing. See also the comments about
              multiple patterns versus a single pattern with
              alternatives in the description of -e above.

              If this option is given more than once, all the specified
              files are read. A data line is output if any of the
              patterns match it. A filename can be given as "-" to refer
              to the standard input. When -f is used, patterns specified
              on the command line using -e may also be present; they are
              tested before the file's patterns. However, no other
              pattern is taken from the command line; all arguments are
              treated as the names of paths to be searched.

       --file-list=filename
              Read a list of files and/or directories that are to be
              scanned from the given file, one per line. Trailing white
              space is removed from each line, and blank lines are
              ignored. These paths are processed before any that are
              listed on the command line. The filename can be given as
              "-" to refer to the standard input.  If --file and --file-
              list are both specified as "-", patterns are read first.
              This is useful only when the standard input is a terminal,
              from which further lines (the list of files) can be read
              after an end-of-file indication. If this option is given
              more than once, all the specified files are read.

       --file-offsets
              Instead of showing lines or parts of lines that match,
              show each match as an offset from the start of the file
              and a length, separated by a comma. In this mode, no
              context is shown. That is, the -A, -B, and -C options are
              ignored. If there is more than one match in a line, each
              of them is shown separately. This option is mutually
              exclusive with --line-offsets and --only-matching.

       -H, --with-filename
              Force the inclusion of the filename at the start of output
              lines when searching a single file. By default, the
              filename is not shown in this case. For matching lines,
              the filename is followed by a colon; for context lines, a
              hyphen separator is used. If a line number is also being
              output, it follows the file name.

       -h, --no-filename
              Suppress the output filenames when searching multiple
              files. By default, filenames are shown when multiple files
              are searched. For matching lines, the filename is followed
              by a colon; for context lines, a hyphen separator is used.
              If a line number is also being output, it follows the file
              name.

       --help Output a help message, giving brief details of the command
              options and file type support, and then exit. Anything
              else on the command line is ignored.

       -I     Treat binary files as never matching. This is equivalent
              to --binary-files=without-match.

       -i, --ignore-case
              Ignore upper/lower case distinctions during comparisons.

       --include=pattern
              If any --include patterns are specified, the only files
              that are processed are those that match one of the
              patterns (and do not match an --exclude pattern). This
              option does not affect directories, but it applies to all
              files, whether listed on the command line, obtained from
              --file-list, or by scanning a directory. The pattern is a
              PCRE regular expression, and is matched against the final
              component of the file name, not the entire path. The -F,
              -w, and -x options do not apply to this pattern. The
              option may be given any number of times. If a file name
              matches both an --include and an --exclude pattern, it is
              excluded.  There is no short form for this option.

       --include-from=filename
              Treat each non-empty line of the file as the data for an
              --include option. What constitutes a newline for this
              purpose is the operating system's default. The --newline
              option has no effect on this option. This option may be
              given any number of times; all the files are read.

       --include-dir=pattern
              If any --include-dir patterns are specified, the only
              directories that are processed are those that match one of
              the patterns (and do not match an --exclude-dir pattern).
              This applies to all directories, whether listed on the
              command line, obtained from --file-list, or by scanning a
              parent directory. The pattern is a PCRE regular
              expression, and is matched against the final component of
              the directory name, not the entire path. The -F, -w, and
              -x options do not apply to this pattern. The option may be
              given any number of times. If a directory matches both
              --include-dir and --exclude-dir, it is excluded. There is
              no short form for this option.

       -L, --files-without-match
              Instead of outputting lines from the files, just output
              the names of the files that do not contain any lines that
              would have been output. Each file name is output once, on
              a separate line.

       -l, --files-with-matches
              Instead of outputting lines from the files, just output
              the names of the files containing lines that would have
              been output. Each file name is output once, on a separate
              line. Searching normally stops as soon as a matching line
              is found in a file. However, if the -c (count) option is
              also used, matching continues in order to obtain the
              correct count, and those files that have at least one
              match are listed along with their counts. Using this
              option with -c is a way of suppressing the listing of
              files with no matches.

       --label=name
              This option supplies a name to be used for the standard
              input when file names are being output. If not supplied,
              "(standard input)" is used. There is no short form for
              this option.

       --line-buffered
              When this option is given, input is read and processed
              line by line, and the output is flushed after each write.
              By default, input is read in large chunks, unless pcregrep
              can determine that it is reading from a terminal (which is
              currently possible only in Unix-like environments). Output
              to terminal is normally automatically flushed by the
              operating system. This option can be useful when the input
              or output is attached to a pipe and you do not want
              pcregrep to buffer up large amounts of data. However, its
              use will affect performance, and the -M (multiline) option
              ceases to work.

       --line-offsets
              Instead of showing lines or parts of lines that match,
              show each match as a line number, the offset from the
              start of the line, and a length. The line number is
              terminated by a colon (as usual; see the -n option), and
              the offset and length are separated by a comma. In this
              mode, no context is shown.  That is, the -A, -B, and -C
              options are ignored. If there is more than one match in a
              line, each of them is shown separately. This option is
              mutually exclusive with --file-offsets and --only-
              matching.

       --locale=locale-name
              This option specifies a locale to be used for pattern
              matching. It overrides the value in the LC_ALL or LC_CTYPE
              environment variables. If no locale is specified, the PCRE
              library's default (usually the "C" locale) is used. There
              is no short form for this option.

       --match-limit=number
              Processing some regular expression patterns can require a
              very large amount of memory, leading in some cases to a
              program crash if not enough is available.  Other patterns
              may take a very long time to search for all possible
              matching strings. The pcre_exec() function that is called
              by pcregrep to do the matching has two parameters that can
              limit the resources that it uses.

              The --match-limit option provides a means of limiting
              resource usage when processing patterns that are not going
              to match, but which have a very large number of
              possibilities in their search trees. The classic example
              is a pattern that uses nested unlimited repeats.
              Internally, PCRE uses a function called match() which it
              calls repeatedly (sometimes recursively). The limit set by
              --match-limit is imposed on the number of times this
              function is called during a match, which has the effect of
              limiting the amount of backtracking that can take place.

              The --recursion-limit option is similar to --match-limit,
              but instead of limiting the total number of times that
              match() is called, it limits the depth of recursive calls,
              which in turn limits the amount of memory that can be
              used. The recursion depth is a smaller number than the
              total number of calls, because not all calls to match()
              are recursive. This limit is of use only if it is set
              smaller than --match-limit.

              There are no short forms for these options. The default
              settings are specified when the PCRE library is compiled,
              with the default default being 10 million.

       -M, --multiline
              Allow patterns to match more than one line. When this
              option is given, patterns may usefully contain literal
              newline characters and internal occurrences of ^ and $
              characters. The output for a successful match may consist
              of more than one line, the last of which is the one in
              which the match ended. If the matched string ends with a
              newline sequence the output ends at the end of that line.

              When this option is set, the PCRE library is called in
              "multiline" mode.  There is a limit to the number of lines
              that can be matched, imposed by the way that pcregrep
              buffers the input file as it scans it. However, pcregrep
              ensures that at least 8K characters or the rest of the
              document (whichever is the shorter) are available for
              forward matching, and similarly the previous 8K characters
              (or all the previous characters, if fewer than 8K) are
              guaranteed to be available for lookbehind assertions. This
              option does not work when input is read line by line (see
              --line-buffered.)

       -N newline-type, --newline=newline-type
              The PCRE library supports five different conventions for
              indicating the ends of lines. They are the single-
              character sequences CR (carriage return) and LF
              (linefeed), the two-character sequence CRLF, an "anycrlf"
              convention, which recognizes any of the preceding three
              types, and an "any" convention, in which any Unicode line
              ending sequence is assumed to end a line. The Unicode
              sequences are the three just mentioned, plus VT (vertical
              tab, U+000B), FF (form feed, U+000C), NEL (next line,
              U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), and PS (paragraph
              separator, U+2029).

              When the PCRE library is built, a default line-ending
              sequence is specified.  This is normally the standard
              sequence for the operating system. Unless otherwise
              specified by this option, pcregrep uses the library's
              default.  The possible values for this option are CR, LF,
              CRLF, ANYCRLF, or ANY. This makes it possible to use
              pcregrep to scan files that have come from other
              environments without having to modify their line endings.
              If the data that is being scanned does not agree with the
              convention set by this option, pcregrep may behave in
              strange ways. Note that this option does not apply to
              files specified by the -f, --exclude-from, or --include-
              from options, which are expected to use the operating
              system's standard newline sequence.

       -n, --line-number
              Precede each output line by its line number in the file,
              followed by a colon for matching lines or a hyphen for
              context lines. If the filename is also being output, it
              precedes the line number. This option is forced if --line-
              offsets is used.

       --no-jit
              If the PCRE library is built with support for just-in-time
              compiling (which speeds up matching), pcregrep
              automatically makes use of this, unless it was explicitly
              disabled at build time. This option can be used to disable
              the use of JIT at run time. It is provided for testing and
              working round problems.  It should never be needed in
              normal use.

       -o, --only-matching
              Show only the part of the line that matched a pattern
              instead of the whole line. In this mode, no context is
              shown. That is, the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored. If
              there is more than one match in a line, each of them is
              shown separately. If -o is combined with -v (invert the
              sense of the match to find non-matching lines), no output
              is generated, but the return code is set appropriately. If
              the matched portion of the line is empty, nothing is
              output unless the file name or line number are being
              printed, in which case they are shown on an otherwise
              empty line. This option is mutually exclusive with --file-
              offsets and --line-offsets.

       -onumber, --only-matching=number
              Show only the part of the line that matched the capturing
              parentheses of the given number. Up to 32 capturing
              parentheses are supported, and -o0 is equivalent to -o
              without a number. Because these options can be given
              without an argument (see above), if an argument is
              present, it must be given in the same shell item, for
              example, -o3 or --only-matching=2. The comments given for
              the non-argument case above also apply to this case. If
              the specified capturing parentheses do not exist in the
              pattern, or were not set in the match, nothing is output
              unless the file name or line number are being printed.

              If this option is given multiple times, multiple
              substrings are output, in the order the options are given.
              For example, -o3 -o1 -o3 causes the substrings matched by
              capturing parentheses 3 and 1 and then 3 again to be
              output. By default, there is no separator (but see the
              next option).

       --om-separator=text
              Specify a separating string for multiple occurrences of
              -o. The default is an empty string. Separating strings are
              never coloured.

       -q, --quiet
              Work quietly, that is, display nothing except error
              messages. The exit status indicates whether or not any
              matches were found.

       -r, --recursive
              If any given path is a directory, recursively scan the
              files it contains, taking note of any --include and
              --exclude settings. By default, a directory is read as a
              normal file; in some operating systems this gives an
              immediate end-of-file. This option is a shorthand for
              setting the -d option to "recurse".

       --recursion-limit=number
              See --match-limit above.

       -s, --no-messages
              Suppress error messages about non-existent or unreadable
              files. Such files are quietly skipped. However, the return
              code is still 2, even if matches were found in other
              files.

       -u, --utf-8
              Operate in UTF-8 mode. This option is available only if
              PCRE has been compiled with UTF-8 support. All patterns
              (including those for any --exclude and --include options)
              and all subject lines that are scanned must be valid
              strings of UTF-8 characters.

       -V, --version
              Write the version numbers of pcregrep and the PCRE library
              to the standard output and then exit. Anything else on the
              command line is ignored.

       -v, --invert-match
              Invert the sense of the match, so that lines which do not
              match any of the patterns are the ones that are found.

       -w, --word-regex, --word-regexp
              Force the patterns to match only whole words. This is
              equivalent to having \b at the start and end of the
              pattern. This option applies only to the patterns that are
              matched against the contents of files; it does not apply
              to patterns specified by any of the --include or --exclude
              options.

       -x, --line-regex, --line-regexp
              Force the patterns to be anchored (each must start
              matching at the beginning of a line) and in addition,
              require them to match entire lines. This is equivalent to
              having ^ and $ characters at the start and end of each
              alternative branch in every pattern. This option applies
              only to the patterns that are matched against the contents
              of files; it does not apply to patterns specified by any
              of the --include or --exclude options.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top


       The environment variables LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE are examined, in
       that order, for a locale. The first one that is set is used. This
       can be overridden by the --locale option. If no locale is set,
       the PCRE library's default (usually the "C" locale) is used.

NEWLINES         top


       The -N (--newline) option allows pcregrep to scan files with
       different newline conventions from the default. Any parts of the
       input files that are written to the standard output are copied
       identically, with whatever newline sequences they have in the
       input. However, the setting of this option does not affect the
       interpretation of files specified by the -f, --exclude-from, or
       --include-from options, which are assumed to use the operating
       system's standard newline sequence, nor does it affect the way in
       which pcregrep writes informational messages to the standard
       error and output streams. For these it uses the string "\n" to
       indicate newlines, relying on the C I/O library to convert this
       to an appropriate sequence.

OPTIONS COMPATIBILITY         top


       Many of the short and long forms of pcregrep's options are the
       same as in the GNU grep program. Any long option of the form
       --xxx-regexp (GNU terminology) is also available as --xxx-regex
       (PCRE terminology). However, the --file-list, --file-offsets,
       --include-dir, --line-offsets, --locale, --match-limit, -M,
       --multiline, -N, --newline, --om-separator, --recursion-limit,
       -u, and --utf-8 options are specific to pcregrep, as is the use
       of the --only-matching option with a capturing parentheses
       number.

       Although most of the common options work the same way, a few are
       different in pcregrep. For example, the --include option's
       argument is a glob for GNU grep, but a regular expression for
       pcregrep. If both the -c and -l options are given, GNU grep lists
       only file names, without counts, but pcregrep gives the counts.

OPTIONS WITH DATA         top


       There are four different ways in which an option with data can be
       specified.  If a short form option is used, the data may follow
       immediately, or (with one exception) in the next command line
       item. For example:

         -f/some/file
         -f /some/file

       The exception is the -o option, which may appear with or without
       data.  Because of this, if data is present, it must follow
       immediately in the same item, for example -o3.

       If a long form option is used, the data may appear in the same
       command line item, separated by an equals character, or (with two
       exceptions) it may appear in the next command line item. For
       example:

         --file=/some/file
         --file /some/file

       Note, however, that if you want to supply a file name beginning
       with ~ as data in a shell command, and have the shell expand ~ to
       a home directory, you must separate the file name from the
       option, because the shell does not treat ~ specially unless it is
       at the start of an item.

       The exceptions to the above are the --colour (or --color) and
       --only-matching options, for which the data is optional. If one
       of these options does have data, it must be given in the first
       form, using an equals character. Otherwise pcregrep will assume
       that it has no data.

MATCHING ERRORS         top


       It is possible to supply a regular expression that takes a very
       long time to fail to match certain lines. Such patterns normally
       involve nested indefinite repeats, for example: (a+)*\d when
       matched against a line of a's with no final digit. The PCRE
       matching function has a resource limit that causes it to abort in
       these circumstances. If this happens, pcregrep outputs an error
       message and the line that caused the problem to the standard
       error stream. If there are more than 20 such errors, pcregrep
       gives up.

       The --match-limit option of pcregrep can be used to set the
       overall resource limit; there is a second option called
       --recursion-limit that sets a limit on the amount of memory
       (usually stack) that is used (see the discussion of these options
       above).

DIAGNOSTICS         top


       Exit status is 0 if any matches were found, 1 if no matches were
       found, and 2 for syntax errors, overlong lines, non-existent or
       inaccessible files (even if matches were found in other files) or
       too many matching errors. Using the -s option to suppress error
       messages about inaccessible files does not affect the return
       code.

SEE ALSO         top


       pcrepattern(3), pcresyntax(3), pcretest(1).

AUTHOR         top


       Philip Hazel
       University Computing Service
       Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.

REVISION         top


       Last updated: 03 April 2014
       Copyright (c) 1997-2014 University of Cambridge.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular
       Expressions) project.  Information about the project can be found
       at ⟨http://www.pcre.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.exim.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=PCRE⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the tarball pcre-8.45.tar.gz fetched from
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       man-pages@man7.org

PCRE 8.35                     03 April 2014                  PCREGREP(1)