Piping to grep with pbpaste

UNIX macOS
1

cat file

1 aaa
2 bbb
3 ccc
4 ddd

In TextEdit, I then copy the characters �ccc� to the clipboard. The problem is that the following command gives no output:

bash-3.2$ pbpaste | grep - file

Desired output:

3 ccc

What should the syntax be for that command? I am using MacOS El Capitan with Quartz 2.7.9.

Thanks!

2

Try:

grep -f <(pbpaste) file

or

grep "$(pbpaste)" file

--
Note: some greps can also do this:

pbpaste | grep -f - file

, but not MacOS' BSD grep.

1 Like
3

Not sure I understand, but if you want the paste board contents piped on stdin to be grep ped in file , try grep -f- file

This should work with simple strings like the one you showed, but be careful if there are characters with special meanings in regexes.

4

Note also that on macOS, the grep utility only works on complete lines of text. If the text you selected does not include a <newline> character at the end of the line you selected, pbpaste will only output a partial line of output without a line terminating <newline> character.

1 Like