CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxawkgrep
VGM
VGM

Reputation: 69

How can a grep for a specific field and less the entire line

I would like to know how can a grep for a specific field on each line of a file. I don't want to grep the entire line for a pattern.

e.g.

33 >> sender1 >> recipient2 >> subject vvv
33 >> sender2 >> recipient2 >> subject aaa
22 >> sender1 >> recipient3 >> subject ccc
22 >> sender1 >> recipient3 >> subject xxx

Thank You!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 106

Answers (4)

Jrican
Jrican

Reputation: 302

awk is sweet, but the following might be more intuitive for a non awk user.

recipient field:

cut -d'>' -f5 filename | grep searchString

sender and recipient field:

cut -d'>' -f3,5 filename | grep searchString

But you do lose the rest of the line.

Upvotes: 0

joepd
joepd

Reputation: 4841

A variation on what has been posted already:

awk -F' *>> *' '$3=="recipient2"'

This sets the Field Separator to something more useful, as it includes the spaces. And now recipient20 will not be matched. You could prevent these false matches by including anchors like ^ and "$, or>and\<``, but testing for equality is often easier.

The following has tests for the second field, in the first variant the line is printed if any of the two match, in the second, when both conditions are met:

awk -F' *>> *' '$3=="recipient2" || $2=="sender1"'
awk -F' *>> *' '$3=="recipient2" && $2=="sender1"'

Upvotes: 0

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195209

"grep" on recipient only:

awk -F'>>' '$3~/yourPattern/' file

on recipient and sender:

awk -F'>>' '$3~/yourPattern/||$2~/yourPattern/' file

Upvotes: 5

Umer
Umer

Reputation: 104

Use awk instead of grep, for searching in sender filed

$ awk '$3 ~ /sender/ { print }' filename.txt

For searching in sender and recipient filed

$ awk '$3 ~ /sender2/ || $5 ~ /recipient2/ { print }' filename.txt

Fields are separated by white space. You can add your custom delimiter by awk -F">>" '$3 ~ /sender/ { print }' filename.txt You can use conditions in AND,OR by replacing || for OR and && for AND logic.

Upvotes: 4

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