Using grep to print just the pattern match

UNIX Solaris
1

Hi all,

Is it possible for grep to output just the pattern match and not the whole line when it comes across a match? I know you can adjust the number of trailing or leading lines that are printed, but am yet to find anything that outputs just the pattern match.

Cheers,

Tim

2

In grep, it is -o. I dont know whether this is available in your OS.

grep -o "pattern" FILE
3

What is the point of this?
grep -l lists the files the pattern is found in,, you already know what the pattern is (although not how many times but a -c would show you that).
Yours intrigued...

4

I'm guessing, but if it's a REGEX then there is logic. There could be multiple types of match possible, and you might want all of them. In Solaris for example to get a list of disks from format.

That said, standard grep is the wrong tool for this, sed could do it quite well or gnu grep or even awk.

5

I imagine that "pattern" would contain wildcards, so how would awk or sed do it?

6

Hope this sed solution helps you,

$ cat t
google gooosdasasdgle derwsdfs
googsdfgle google sreogsds google gsdfsdfd
gooswoerjgle tosgsd towgsjsg googpoiwrwroiegle


$ sed '
s/^.*$/&\n/
:loop
s/^\n//
s/\(.*\)\( *goo.*gle *\)\(.*\)\n/\1\n\2/
t loop' t
google gooosdasasdgle 
googsdfgle google google 
gooswoerjgle googpoiwrwroiegle

The above command prints the words, which matches with the pattern "goo.*gle"