grep – find pattern in text files

grep is a basic Unix command that helps you quickly find elements of text by providing a search pattern. If matching lines found, they are printed in your terminal session.

Basic grep usage

In the simplest form, grep takes two parameters: word to search for and file name to look in.

This example shows how to look for “ubuntu” word in the /etc/hosts file:

greys@ubuntu:~ $ grep ubuntu /etc/hosts
127.0.1.1    ubuntu

See Also

• Basic Unix commands
• Show Next Few Lines with grep