Using grep for multiple search patterns

Question

Consider I have the following stream of data:

BODY1
attrib1:  someval11
attrib2:  someval12
attrib3:  someval13

BODY2
attrib1:  someval21
attrib2:  someval22
attrib3:  someval23

BODY3
attrib1:  someval31
attrib2:  someval32
attrib3:  someval33

I want to extract only attrib1 and attrib3 for each BODY, i.e.

attrib1:  someval11
attrib3:  someval13
attrib1:  someval21
attrib3:  someval23
attrib1:  someval31
attrib3:  someval33

I tried

grep 'attrib1\|attrib3', according to this site but that returned nothing. grep attrib1 and grep attrib2 do return data but just for the single pattern specified.

Not that it solves your problem, but it may be easier to follow and faster for grep to find if your regex is attrib[13]. Making the common part longer is usually better. — Andy Lester
– Andy Lester, Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 17:17
what if there was no commong pattern between attrib 1 and 3? if they were named something completelty different? — amphibient
– amphibient, Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 17:18
in the real example, my attrib1 is called foo and attrib3 is called bar... — amphibient
– amphibient, Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 17:19
I don't understand -- does it have to be grep? axiom showed how to do it, but why not just use awk? Am I the only one who finds it simpler for this kind of tasks? — loreb
– loreb, Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 21:38

Aman · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-28 17:23:22Z

36

grep -e 'attrib1' -e 'attrib3' file

From the man page :

-e PATTERN, --regexp=PATTERN
Use PATTERN as the pattern. This can be used to specify multiple search patterns, or to protect a pattern beginning with a hyphen (-). (-e is specified by POSIX.)

Edit : Alternatively , you can save patterns in a file and use the -f option :

aman@aman-VPCEB14EN:~$ cat>patt
attrib1
attrib3

aman@aman-VPCEB14EN:~$ grep -f patt test
attrib1:  someval11
attrib3:  someval13
attrib1:  someval21
attrib3:  someval23
attrib1:  someval31
attrib3:  someval33

edited Nov 28, 2012 at 17:23

answered Nov 28, 2012 at 17:14

Aman

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2 Comments

amphibient Over a year ago

grep: illegal option -- e. i am using SunOS

Aman Over a year ago

@foampile You may try and see if -f option is of any use. Also note that for your example, grep 'attrib1\|attrib3' should also work fine.

tripleee · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-13 19:05:00Z

23

Very simple command:

 bash> grep  "attrib1\|attrib3" <file.name>
attrib1:  someval11
attrib3:  someval13
attrib1:  someval21
attrib3:  someval23
attrib1:  someval31
attrib3:  someval33

edited May 13, 2021 at 19:05

tripleee

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answered Apr 28, 2014 at 9:07

SteveScm

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Comments

Mike Makuch · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-16 05:34:09Z

21

Also egrep;

egrep "pattern1|pattern2|pattern3" file

answered Oct 16, 2013 at 5:34

Mike Makuch

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1 Comment

kayochin Over a year ago

Or grep -E "pattern1|pattern2|pattern3" file

Sirch · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-28 17:25:03Z

1

This works, with GNU grep 2.6.3

grep "attrib[13]"

or

 grep "^[^0-9]*[13]:"

edited Nov 28, 2012 at 17:25

answered Nov 28, 2012 at 17:14

Sirch

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3 Comments

amphibient Over a year ago

what if there was no commong pattern between attrib 1 and 3? if they were named something completelty different?

Sirch Over a year ago

What are you looking for, a 1 or 3 on the end of the first word of the line and followed by a colon?

Charbel Over a year ago

how can I do the same if I had strings with more then one character? something like: very-long-attribute-with-Jon-in-the-middle very-long-attribute-with-Tony-in-the-middle very-long-attribute-with-Richard-in-the-middle so provide something that looks like: "very-long-attribute-with-[Tony|Richard|Jon]-in-the-middle"

Yu Hao · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-16 05:25:11Z

0

It depends on the shell you are into. grep -iw 'patter1\|patter2\|pattern3' works on bash shell where as it doesn't work on korn shell. For korn shell we might have to try grep -e pattern1 -e patter2 and so on.

edited Oct 16, 2013 at 5:25

Yu Hao

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answered Oct 16, 2013 at 5:18

Siva

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1 Comment

tripleee Over a year ago

Which shell you use has no direct bearing on what parameters the grep external command supports.

Jamilah Foucher · Accepted Answer · 2023-10-04 09:41:34Z

0

Also, if there are multiple patterns be sure to put e option as the last options. For example,

grep -iwe 'the' -e 'that' -e 'then' -e 'those' text

OR

grep -iwe 'the' -iwe 'that' -e 'then' -e 'those' text OR grep -wie 'the' -wie 'that' -wie 'then' -wie 'those' text

works! But, if you put e first, like

grep -eiw 'the' -e 'that' -e 'then' -e 'those' text

it returns an error.

answered Oct 4, 2023 at 9:41

Jamilah Foucher

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