Macintosh Terminal Pocket Guide

Name

fgrep — stdin  stdout  - file  -- opt  --help  --version

Synopsis

fgrep [options] [fixed_strings] [files]

The fgrep command is just like grep, but instead of accepting a regular expression, it accepts a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines. It’s the same as grep -F. For example, if you have a dictionary file full of strings, one per line:

➜ cat my_dictionary_file
aardvark
aback
abandon
...

you can conveniently search for those strings in a set of input files:

➜ fgrep -f my_dictionary_file inputfile1 inputfile2

Normally, you’ll use the lowercase -f option to make fgrep read the fixed strings from a file. You can also read the fixed strings on the command line using quoting, but it’s a bit trickier. To search for the strings one, two, and three in a file, you’d type:

➜ fgrep 'one            Note we are typing newline characters
two
three' myfile

fgrep is convenient when searching for non-alphanumeric characters like * and { because they are taken literally, not as regular expression characters.