CODEWITHSUNDEEP
unixgrep
key.m
key.m

Reputation: 87

grep \t matching letter "t", not tabs

I want to create a sequence of between n and m alphabetic characters, example 6 and 8, i.e. upper or lower case a through z. The sequence must be separated from the rest of the line by a space or tab character (on each side)

Why my code not working?!

grep -E [ \t][A-Za-z]{6,8}[ \t] myfile.dat

output gives all sequence of words between 6 and 8 and has space on each side, but for \t it translate it as letter t ?!!

what is wrong ?!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2183

Answers (2)

key.m
key.m

Reputation: 87

By using $ sign in the beginning:

grep -E $'[ \t][A-Za-z]{6,8}[ \t]' myfile.dat

Upvotes: 2

mjuarez
mjuarez

Reputation: 16834

This works for either tabs or spaces on both sides:

grep -E "[:space:][:alpha:]{6,8}[:space:]" myfile.dat

Also, as suggested by @CharlesDuffy in the comments, changing the [A-Za-z] to [:alpha:] will better handle non-standard locales.

Upvotes: 1

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