How can I reduce this grep repetition?

Question

Is there a way to write the following command more concisely?

grep -E '[A-Z](([a-z]{2})|([a-z]{3})|([a-z]{4}))' file.txt

Answer 1

Instead of using an alternation | for every quantifier {2}, {3}, {4} in a separate capturing group you could use a single quantifier {2,4} and a single capturing group.

grep -E '[A-Z]([a-z]{2,4})' file.txt

About the pattern

• [A-Z] Match single char A-Z
• ( Capture group 1
  • [a-z]{2,4} match 2-4 times a-z
• ) Close group