CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexlinuxgrep
sMaN
sMaN

Reputation: 3937

How to invert a grep expression

The following grep expression successfully lists all the .exe and .html files in the current directory and sub directories. 

ls -R |grep -E .*[\.exe]$\|.*[\.html]$

How do I invert this result to list those that aren't a .html or .exe instead. (That is, !=.)

Upvotes: 337

Views: 387374

Answers (5)

jmd_dk
jmd_dk

Reputation: 13120

As stated multiple times, inversion is achieved by the -v option to grep. Let me add the (hopefully amusing) note that you could have figured this out yourself by grepping through the grep help text:

grep --help | grep invert

-v, --invert-match select non-matching lines

Upvotes: 31

Anja Ishmukhametova
Anja Ishmukhametova

Reputation: 1564

 grep "subscription" | grep -v "spec"

Upvotes: 17

Eric Fortis
Eric Fortis

Reputation: 17370

Use command-line option -v or --invert-match,

ls -R |grep -v -E .*[\.exe]$\|.*[\.html]$

Upvotes: 469

Rob Sobers
Rob Sobers

Reputation: 21155

Add the -v option to your grep command to invert the results.

Upvotes: 37

darioo
darioo

Reputation: 47213

grep -v

or

grep --invert-match

You can also do the same thing using find:

find . -type f \( -iname "*" ! -iname ".exe" ! -iname ".html"\)

More info here.

Upvotes: 134

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