pcre2grep(1) General Commands Manual pcre2grep(1)
NAME
pcre2grep - a grep with Perl-compatible regular expressions.
SYNOPSIS
pcre2grep [options] [long options] [pattern] [path1 path2 ...]
DESCRIPTION
pcre2grep searches files for character patterns, in the same way as
other grep commands do, but it uses the PCRE2 regular expression
library to support patterns that are compatible with the regular
expressions of Perl 5. See pcre2syntax(3) for a quick-reference summary
of pattern syntax, or pcre2pattern(3) for a full description of the
syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that PCRE2 supports.
Patterns, whether supplied on the command line or in a separate file,
are given without delimiters. For example:
pcre2grep 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, pcre2grep reads the standard input. The
standard input can also be referenced by a name consisting of a single
hyphen. For example:
pcre2grep some-pattern file1 - file3
By default, input files are searched line by line, so pattern
assertions about the beginning and end of a subject string (^, $, \A,
\Z, and \z) match at the beginning and end of each line. When a line
matches a pattern, it 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
pcre2grep behaves. For example, the -M option makes it possible to
search for strings that span line boundaries. What defines a line
boundary is controlled by the -N (--newline) option. The -h and -H
options control whether or not file names are shown, and the -Z option
changes the file name terminator to a zero byte.
The amount of memory used for buffering files that are being scanned is
controlled by parameters that can be set by the --buffer-size and
--max-buffer-size options. The first of these sets the size of buffer
that is obtained at the start of processing. If an input file contains
very long lines, a larger buffer may be needed; this is handled by
automatically extending the buffer, up to the limit specified by --max-
buffer-size. The default values for these parameters can be set when
pcre2grep is built; if nothing is specified, the defaults are set to
20KiB and 1MiB respectively. An error occurs if a line is too long and
the buffer can no longer be expanded.
The block of memory that is actually used is three times the "buffer
size", to allow for buffering "before" and "after" lines. If the buffer
size is too small, fewer than requested "before" and "after" lines may
be output.
When matching with a multiline pattern, the size of the buffer must be
at least half of the maximum match expected or the pattern might fail
to match.
Patterns can be no longer than 8KiB 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, --line-
offsets, or --output is used to output only the part of the line that
matched (either shown literally, or as an offset), the behaviour is
different. In this situation, all the patterns are applied to the line.
If there is more than one match, the one that begins nearest to the
start of the subject is processed; if there is more than one match at
that position, the one with the longest matching substring is
processed; if the matching substrings are equal, the first match found
is processed.
Scanning with all the patterns resumes immediately following the match,
so that later matches on the same line can be found. Note, however,
that an overlapping match that starts in the middle of another match
will not be processed.
The above behaviour was changed at release 10.41 to be more compatible
with GNU grep. In earlier releases, pcre2grep did not recognize matches
from later patterns that were earlier in the subject.
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, pcre2grep uses
the value to set a locale when calling the PCRE2 library. The --locale
option can be used to override this.
SUPPORT FOR COMPRESSED FILES
Compile-time options for pcre2grep can set it up to use libz or libbz2
for reading compressed files whose names end in .gz or .bz2,
respectively. You can find out whether your pcre2grep 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, all files are
treated as plain text. The standard input is always so treated. If a
file with a .gz or .bz2 extension is not in fact compressed, it is read
as a plain text file. When input is from a compressed .gz or .bz2 file,
the --line-buffered option is ignored.
BINARY FILES
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.
However, if the newline type is specified as NUL, that is, the line
terminator is a binary zero, the test for a binary file is not applied.
See the --binary-files option for a means of changing the way binary
files are handled.
BINARY ZEROS IN PATTERNS
Patterns passed from the command line are strings that are terminated
by a binary zero, so cannot contain internal zeros. However, patterns
that are read from a file via the -f option may contain binary zeros.
OPTIONS
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 file
names that start with hyphens.
-A number, --after-context=number
Output up to number lines of context after each matching
line. Fewer lines are output if the next match or the end of
the file is reached, or if the processing buffer size has
been set too small. If file names and/or line numbers are
being output, a hyphen separator is used instead of a colon
for the context lines (the -Z option can be used to change
the file name terminator to a zero byte). 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. When -c is used, -A is
ignored.
-a, --text
Treat binary files as text. This is equivalent to --binary-
files=text.
--allow-lookaround-bsk
PCRE2 now forbids the use of \K in lookarounds by default, in
line with Perl. This option causes pcre2grep to set the
PCRE2_EXTRA_ALLOW_LOOKAROUND_BSK option, which enables this
somewhat dangerous usage.
-B number, --before-context=number
Output up to number lines of context before each matching
line. Fewer lines are output if the previous match or the
start of the file is within number lines, or if the
processing buffer size has been set too small. If file names
and/or line numbers are being output, a hyphen separator is
used instead of a colon for the context lines (the -Z option
can be used to change the file name terminator to a zero
byte). 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. When
-c is used, -B is ignored.
--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 and are skipped without causing
any output or affecting the return code.
--buffer-size=number
Set the parameter that controls how much memory is obtained
at the start of processing for buffering files that are being
scanned. See also --max-buffer-size below.
-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 lines from the files that are being scanned;
instead output the number of lines that would have been
shown, either because they matched, or, if -v is set, because
they failed to match. By default, this count is exactly the
same as the number of lines that would have been output, but
if the -M (multiline) option is used (without -v), there may
be more suppressed lines than the count (that is, the number
of matches).
If no lines are selected, the number zero is output. If
several files are being scanned, a count is output for each
of them and the -t option can be used to cause a total to be
output at the end. 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.
It is ignored if --file-offsets, --line-offsets, or --output
is set. By default, output is not coloured. The value for the
--colour option (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 pcre2grep 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 one of
the environment variables PCRE2GREP_COLOUR, PCRE2GREP_COLOR,
PCREGREP_COLOUR, or PCREGREP_COLOR, which are checked in that
order. If none of these are set, pcre2grep looks for
GREP_COLORS or GREP_COLOR (in that order). The value of the
variable should be a string of two numbers, separated by a
semicolon, except in the case of GREP_COLORS, which must
start with "ms=" or "mt=" followed by two semicolon-separated
colours, terminated by the end of the string or by a colon.
If GREP_COLORS does not start with "ms=" or "mt=" it is
ignored, and GREP_COLOR is checked.
If the string obtained from one of the above variables
contains any characters other than semicolon or digits, the
setting is ignored and the default colour is used. The string
is copied directly into the control string for setting colour
on a terminal, so it is your responsibility to ensure that
the values make sense. If no relevant environment variable 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.
--depth-limit=number
See --match-limit below.
-E, --case-restrict
When case distinctions are being ignored in Unicode mode, two
ASCII letters (K and S) will by default match Unicode
characters U+212A (Kelvin sign) and U+017F (long S)
respectively, as well as their lower case ASCII counterparts.
When this option is set, case equivalences are restricted
such that no ASCII character matches a non-ASCII character,
and vice versa.
-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.
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.
--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 PCRE2
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 PCRE2 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. As is the case
with patterns on the command line, no delimiters should be
used. What constitutes a newline when reading the file is the
operating system's default interpretation of \n. 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. Patterns read from a file in this way may contain
binary zeros, which are treated as ordinary data characters.
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 file name 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 matched
before the file's patterns. However, no 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. What constitutes a
newline when reading the file is the operating system's
default. 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 file name 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, --colour has no
effect, and 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 --output, --line-offsets, and --only-
matching.
--group-separator=text
Output this text string instead of two hyphens between groups
of lines when -A, -B, or -C is in use. See also --no-group-
separator.
-H, --with-filename
Force the inclusion of the file name at the start of output
lines when searching a single file. The file name is not
normally shown in this case. By default, for matching lines,
the file name is followed by a colon; for context lines, a
hyphen separator is used. The -Z option can be used to change
the terminator to a zero byte. If a line number is also being
output, it follows the file name. When the -M option causes a
pattern to match more than one line, only the first is
preceded by the file name. This option overrides any previous
-h, -l, or -L options.
-h, --no-filename
Suppress the output file names when searching multiple files.
File names are normally shown when multiple files are
searched. By default, for matching lines, the file name is
followed by a colon; for context lines, a hyphen separator is
used. The -Z option can be used to change the terminator to a
zero byte. If a line number is also being output, it follows
the file name. This option overrides any previous -H, -L, or
-l options.
--heap-limit=number
See --match-limit below.
--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 Ignore binary files. This is equivalent to --binary-
files=without-match.
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore upper/lower case distinctions when pattern matching.
This applies when matching path names for inclusion or
exclusion as well as when matching lines in files.
--include=pattern
If any --include patterns are specified, the only files that
are processed are those whose names 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 PCRE2 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 whose names 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 PCRE2 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 by default, but if the -Z option is set, they
are separated by zero bytes instead of newlines. This option
overrides any previous -H, -h, or -l options.
-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,
but if the -Z option is set, they are separated by zero bytes
instead of newlines. 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 that occurs with -c on its own. This option overrides
any previous -H, -h, or -L options.
--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, non-compressed 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
pcre2grep can determine that it is reading from a terminal,
which is currently possible only in Unix-like environments or
Windows. 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
pcre2grep to buffer up large amounts of data. However, its
use will affect performance, and the -M (multiline) option
ceases to work. When input is from a compressed .gz or .bz2
file, --line-buffered is ignored.
--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, --colour has no effect,
and 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 --output, --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 PCRE2
library's default (usually the "C" locale) is used. There is
no short form for this option.
-M, --multiline
Allow patterns to match more than one line. When this option
is set, the PCRE2 library is called in "multiline" mode, and
a match is allowed to continue past the end of the initial
line and onto one or more subsequent lines.
Patterns used with -M may usefully contain literal newline
characters and internal occurrences of ^ and $ characters,
because in multiline mode these can match at internal
newlines. Because pcre2grep is scanning multiple lines, the
\Z and \z assertions match only at the end of the last line
in the file. The \A assertion matches at the start of the
first line of a match. This can be any line in the file; it
is not anchored to the first line.
The output for a successful match may consist of more than
one line. The first line is the line in which the match
started, and the last line is the line in which the match
ended. If the matched string ends with a newline sequence,
the output ends at the end of that line. If -v is set, none
of the lines in a multi-line match are output. Once a match
has been handled, scanning restarts at the beginning of the
line after the one in which the match ended.
The newline sequence that separates multiple lines must be
matched as part of the pattern. For example, to find the
phrase "regular expression" in a file where "regular" might
be at the end of a line and "expression" at the start of the
next line, you could use this command:
pcre2grep -M 'regular\s+expression' <file>
The \s escape sequence matches any white space character,
including newlines, and is followed by + so as to match
trailing white space on the first line as well as possibly
handling a two-character newline sequence.
There is a limit to the number of lines that can be matched,
imposed by the way that pcre2grep buffers the input file as
it scans it. With a sufficiently large processing buffer,
this should not be a problem.
The -M option does not work when input is read line by line
(see --line-buffered.)
-m number, --max-count=number
Stop processing after finding number matching lines, or non-
matching lines if -v is also set. Any trailing context lines
are output after the final match. In multiline mode, each
multiline match counts as just one line for this purpose. If
this limit is reached when reading the standard input from a
regular file, the file is left positioned just after the last
matching line. If -c is also set, the count that is output
is never greater than number. This option has no effect if
used with -L, -l, or -q, or when just checking for a match in
a binary file.
--match-limit=number
Processing some regular expression patterns may take a very
long time to search for all possible matching strings. Others
may require a very large amount of memory. There are three
options that set resource limits for matching.
The --match-limit option provides a means of limiting
computing 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, PCRE2
has a counter that is incremented each time around its main
processing loop. If the value set by --match-limit is
reached, an error occurs.
The --heap-limit option specifies, as a number of kibibytes
(units of 1024 bytes), the maximum amount of heap memory that
may be used for matching.
The --depth-limit option limits the depth of nested
backtracking points, which indirectly limits the amount of
memory that is used. The amount of memory needed for each
backtracking point depends on the number of capturing
parentheses in the pattern, so the amount of memory that is
used before this limit acts varies from pattern to pattern.
This limit is of use only if it is set smaller than --match-
limit.
There are no short forms for these options. The default
limits can be set when the PCRE2 library is compiled; if they
are not specified, the defaults are very large and so
effectively unlimited.
--max-buffer-size=number
This limits the expansion of the processing buffer, whose
initial size can be set by --buffer-size. The maximum buffer
size is silently forced to be no smaller than the starting
buffer size.
-N newline-type, --newline=newline-type
Six different conventions for indicating the ends of lines in
scanned files are supported. For example:
pcre2grep -N CRLF 'some pattern' <file>
The newline type may be specified in upper, lower, or mixed
case. If the newline type is NUL, lines are separated by
binary zero characters. The other types are the single-
character sequences CR (carriage return) and LF (linefeed),
the two-character sequence CRLF, an "anycrlf" type, which
recognizes any of the preceding three types, and an "any"
type, for 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 PCRE2 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, pcre2grep uses the library's default.
This option makes it possible to use pcre2grep 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,
pcre2grep 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 file name is also being output, it
precedes the line number. When the -M option causes a pattern
to match more than one line, only the first is preceded by
its line number. This option is forced if --line-offsets is
used.
--no-group-separator
Do not output a separator between groups of lines when -A,
-B, or -C is in use. The default is to output a line
containing two hyphens. See also --group-separator.
--no-jit If the PCRE2 library is built with support for just-in-time
compiling (which speeds up matching), pcre2grep 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 around
problems. It should never be needed in normal use.
-O text, --output=text
When there is a match, instead of outputting the line that
matched, output just the text specified in this option,
followed by an operating-system standard newline. In this
mode, --colour has no effect, and no context is shown. That
is, the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored. The --newline
option has no effect on this option, which is mutually
exclusive with --only-matching, --file-offsets, and --line-
offsets. However, like --only-matching, if there is more than
one match in a line, each of them causes a line of output.
Escape sequences starting with a dollar character may be used
to insert the contents of the matched part of the line and/or
captured substrings into the text.
$<digits> or ${<digits>} is replaced by the captured
substring of the given decimal number; zero substitutes the
whole match. If the number is greater than the number of
capturing substrings, or if the capture is unset, the
replacement is empty.
$a is replaced by bell; $b by backspace; $e by escape; $f by
form feed; $n by newline; $r by carriage return; $t by tab;
$v by vertical tab.
$o<digits> or $o{<digits>} is replaced by the character whose
code point is the given octal number. In the first form, up
to three octal digits are processed. When more digits are
needed in Unicode mode to specify a wide character, the
second form must be used.
$x<digits> or $x{<digits>} is replaced by the character
represented by the given hexadecimal number. In the first
form, up to two hexadecimal digits are processed. When more
digits are needed in Unicode mode to specify a wide
character, the second form must be used.
Any other character is substituted by itself. In particular,
$$ is replaced by a single dollar.
-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,
on a separate line of output. 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 --output,
--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 50 capturing
parentheses are supported by default. This limit can be
changed via the --om-capture option. A pattern may contain
any number of capturing parentheses, but only those whose
number is within the limit can be accessed by -o. An error
occurs if the number specified by -o is greater than the
limit.
-o0 is the same as -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 option. 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 output.
If this option is given multiple times, multiple substrings
are output for each match, in the order the options are
given, and all on one line. 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 but one option).
--om-capture=number
Set the number of capturing parentheses that can be accessed
by -o. The default is 50.
--om-separator=text
Specify a separating string for multiple occurrences of -o.
The default is an empty string. Separating strings are never
coloured.
-P, --no-ucp
Starting from release 10.43, when UTF/Unicode mode is
specified with -u or -U, the PCRE2_UCP option is used by
default. This means that the POSIX classes in patterns match
more than just ASCII characters. For example, [:digit:]
matches any Unicode decimal digit. The --no-ucp option
suppresses PCRE2_UCP, thus restricting the POSIX classes to
ASCII characters, as was the case in earlier releases. Note
that there are now more fine-grained option settings within
patterns that affect individual classes. For example, when in
UCP mode, the sequence (?aP) restricts [:word:] to ASCII
letters, while allowing \w to match Unicode letters and
digits.
-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
This is an obsolete synonym for --depth-limit. See --match-
limit above for details.
-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.
-t, --total-count
This option is useful when scanning more than one file. If
used on its own, -t suppresses all output except for a grand
total number of matching lines (or non-matching lines if -v
is used) in all the files. If -t is used with -c, a grand
total is output except when the previous output is just one
line. In other words, it is not output when just one file's
count is listed. If file names are being output, the grand
total is preceded by "TOTAL:". Otherwise, it appears as just
another number. The -t option is ignored when used with -L
(list files without matches), because the grand total would
always be zero.
-u, --utf Operate in UTF/Unicode mode. This option is available only if
PCRE2 has been compiled with UTF-8 support. All patterns
(including those for any --exclude and --include options) and
all lines that are scanned must be valid strings of UTF-8
characters. If an invalid UTF-8 string is encountered, an
error occurs.
-U, --utf-allow-invalid
As --utf, but in addition subject lines may contain invalid
UTF-8 code unit sequences. These can never form part of any
pattern match. Patterns themselves, however, must still be
valid UTF-8 strings. This facility allows valid UTF-8 strings
to be sought within arbitrary byte sequences in executable or
other binary files. For more details about matching in non-
valid UTF-8 strings, see the pcre2unicode(3) documentation.
-V, --version
Write the version numbers of pcre2grep and the PCRE2 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. When
this option is set, options such as --only-matching and
--output, which specify parts of a match that are to be
output, are ignored.
-w, --word-regex, --word-regexp
Force the patterns only to match "words". That is, there must
be a word boundary at the start and end of each matched
string. This is equivalent to having "\b(?:" at the start of
each pattern, and ")\b" at the end. 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 start matching only at the beginnings
of lines, and in addition, require them to match entire
lines. In multiline mode the match may be more than one line.
This is equivalent to having "^(?:" at the start of each
pattern and ")$" at the end. 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.
-Z, --null
Terminate files names in the regular output with a zero byte
(the NUL character) instead of what would normally appear.
This is useful when file names contain unusual characters
such as colons, hyphens, or even newlines. The option does
not apply to file names in error messages.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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 PCRE2
library's default (usually the "C" locale) is used.
NEWLINES
The -N (--newline) option allows pcre2grep to scan files with newline
conventions that differ from the default. This option affects only the
way scanned files are processed. It does not affect the interpretation
of files specified by the -f, --file-list, --exclude-from, or
--include-from options.
Any parts of the scanned input files that are written to the standard
output are copied with whatever newline sequences they have in the
input. However, if the final line of a file is output, and it does not
end with a newline sequence, a newline sequence is added. If the
newline setting is CR, LF, CRLF or NUL, that line ending is output; for
the other settings (ANYCRLF or ANY) a single NL is used.
The newline setting does not affect the way in which pcre2grep writes
newlines in informational messages to the standard output and error
streams. Under Windows, the standard output is set to be binary, so
that "\r\n" at the ends of output lines that are copied from the input
is not converted to "\r\r\n" by the C I/O library. This means that any
messages written to the standard output must end with "\r\n". For all
other operating systems, and for all messages to the standard error
stream, "\n" is used.
OPTIONS COMPATIBILITY WITH GNU GREP
Many of the short and long forms of pcre2grep'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 (PCRE2 terminology).
However, the --case-restrict, --depth-limit, -E, --file-list, --file-
offsets, --heap-limit, --include-dir, --line-offsets, --locale,
--match-limit, -M, --multiline, -N, --newline, --no-ucp, --om-
separator, --output, -P, -u, --utf, -U, and --utf-allow-invalid options
are specific to pcre2grep, 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 pcre2grep. For example, the --include option's argument is
a glob for GNU grep, but in pcre2grep it is a regular expression to
which the -i option applies. If both the -c and -l options are given,
GNU grep lists only file names, without counts, but pcre2grep gives the
counts as well.
OPTIONS WITH DATA
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 pcre2grep will assume that it has no data.
USING PCRE2'S CALLOUT FACILITY
pcre2grep has, by default, support for calling external programs or
scripts or echoing specific strings during matching by making use of
PCRE2's callout facility. However, this support can be completely or
partially disabled when pcre2grep is built. You can find out whether
your binary has support for callouts by running it with the --help
option. If callout support is completely disabled, all callouts in
patterns are ignored by pcre2grep. If the facility is partially
disabled, calling external programs is not supported, and callouts that
request it are ignored.
A callout in a PCRE2 pattern is of the form (?C<arg>) where the
argument is either a number or a quoted string (see the pcre2callout
documentation for details). Numbered callouts are ignored by pcre2grep;
only callouts with string arguments are useful.
Echoing a specific string
Starting the callout string with a pipe character invokes an echoing
facility that avoids calling an external program or script. This
facility is always available, provided that callouts were not
completely disabled when pcre2grep was built. The rest of the callout
string is processed as a zero-terminated string, which means it should
not contain any internal binary zeros. It is written to the output,
having first been passed through the same escape processing as text
from the --output (-O) option (see above). However, $0 cannot be used
to insert a matched substring because the match is still in progress.
Instead, the single character '0' is inserted. Any syntax errors in the
string (for example, a dollar not followed by another character) causes
the callout to be ignored. No terminator is added to the output string,
so if you want a newline, you must include it explicitly using the
escape $n. For example:
pcre2grep '(.)(..(.))(?C"|[$1] [$2] [$3]$n")' <some file>
Matching continues normally after the string is output. If you want to
see only the callout output but not any output from an actual match,
you should end the pattern with (*FAIL).
Calling external programs or scripts
This facility can be independently disabled when pcre2grep is built. It
is supported for Windows, where a call to _spawnvp() is used, for VMS,
where lib$spawn() is used, and for any Unix-like environment where
fork() and execv() are available.
If the callout string does not start with a pipe (vertical bar)
character, it is parsed into a list of substrings separated by pipe
characters. The first substring must be an executable name, with the
following substrings specifying arguments:
executable_name|arg1|arg2|...
Any substring (including the executable name) may contain escape
sequences started by a dollar character. These are the same as for the
--output (-O) option documented above, except that $0 cannot insert the
matched string because the match is still in progress. Instead, the
character '0' is inserted. If you need a literal dollar or pipe
character in any substring, use $$ or $| respectively. Here is an
example:
echo -e "abcde\n12345" | pcre2grep \
'(?x)(.)(..(.))
(?C"/bin/echo|Arg1: [$1] [$2] [$3]|Arg2: $|${1}$| ($4)")()' -
Output:
Arg1: [a] [bcd] [d] Arg2: |a| ()
abcde
Arg1: [1] [234] [4] Arg2: |1| ()
12345
The parameters for the system call that is used to run the program or
script are zero-terminated strings. This means that binary zero
characters in the callout argument will cause premature termination of
their substrings, and therefore should not be present. Any syntax
errors in the string (for example, a dollar not followed by another
character) causes the callout to be ignored. If running the program
fails for any reason (including the non-existence of the executable), a
local matching failure occurs and the matcher backtracks in the normal
way.
MATCHING ERRORS
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 PCRE2 matching function has a
resource limit that causes it to abort in these circumstances. If this
happens, pcre2grep outputs an error message and the line that caused
the problem to the standard error stream. If there are more than 20
such errors, pcre2grep gives up.
The --match-limit option of pcre2grep can be used to set the overall
resource limit. There are also other limits that affect the amount of
memory used during matching; see the discussion of --heap-limit and
--depth-limit above.
DIAGNOSTICS
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.
When run under VMS, the return code is placed in the symbol
PCRE2GREP_RC because VMS does not distinguish between exit(0) and
exit(1).
SEE ALSO
pcre2pattern(3), pcre2syntax(3), pcre2callout(3), pcre2unicode(3).
AUTHOR
Philip Hazel
Retired from University Computing Service
Cambridge, England.
REVISION
Last updated: 22 December 2023
Copyright (c) 1997-2023 University of Cambridge.
PCRE2 10.43 22 December 2023 pcre2grep(1)
pcre2 10.43 - Generated Sat Mar 2 10:17:50 CST 2024