Grep multiple strings

Question

I want to find a list of files that have A but do not have B and C.

grep -r -L 'B\|C' finds the ones without B and C, but how do I add the condition of having A as well?

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

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You can use negative lookahead in grep using options -P or --perl-regexp

grep -r -P -L '^(?!.*A).*$|B|C'

edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

Community

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answered Feb 03 '17 at 16:19

Jose Ricardo Bustos M.

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For some reason it still gives me a list with `B` – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 16:25
you can remove `-l` option and show me match string – Jose Ricardo Bustos M. Feb 03 '17 at 16:28
It brings back a list that has `A` but it doesn't check if it has either `B` or `C` – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 16:33
Ex. `template.jsp:<%@ include file="/includes/navigation_lower.html" %>` – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 16:34
Sorry. `lower.html` is `A`. The whole list only shows lines with `A` – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 16:41
That's what I did. The full command is `grep -r -P '(?!.*(DetVehicle|customer))lower\.html(?!.*(DetVehicle|customer))'` – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 17:00
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try with `grep -r -P -L '^(?!.*lower\.html).*$|DetVehicle|customer'` – Jose Ricardo Bustos M. Feb 03 '17 at 17:38
Hm that's odd. It works, but for some reason it also returned an empty file that I have here. When I made a new empty file, it did not return it. Either way, it works. Thanks! – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 17:49
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Changed to Mark's answer – A.J Feb 06 '17 at 13:55

Mark Setchell · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-03T18:00:28.713

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If I understand your question correctly:

grep -l "A" $(grep -r -E -L "B|C" *)

i.e. search for files containing "A" in the list of files that your original command generates.

edited Feb 03 '17 at 18:00

answered Feb 03 '17 at 17:37

Mark Setchell

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This one also returns a list still with either `B` or `C` in it. – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 17:45

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 03 '17 at 17:33

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If I understood your question correctly, you can do it like this:

grep "A" file.txt | grep -v -e "B" -e "C"

The first grep finds lines containing A, the second greptakes the result and removes lines containing either "B" or "C". This works by the -v flag which inverses matches.

answered Feb 03 '17 at 17:33

anaotha

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I ran `grep -r -l "lower\.html" | grep -v -e "DetVehicle" -e "customer"` and it return a list of files that have `lower` but they also have either `Vehicle` or `customer` – A.J Feb 03 '17 at 17:39

Grep multiple strings

3 Answers3