Hi,
I would like to display the new lines of /var/log/messages
that contain either IN_MyText
or OUT_MyText
(no matter where in the line)
I’ve tried
tail -fn 3 /var/log/messages | grep --color --line-buffered -e "(IN|OUT)_MyText"
But the output stay blank, when it should not…
Any ideas ?
grep by default uses Basic Regular Expressions. This means the
(
and)
lose their special meaning and are matched literally. Either use a backslash version\(
to have a group, or use Extended Regular Expressions with-E "(IN|OUT)"
. Inman grep
under REGULAR EXPRESSIONS are some differences noted.Thank you ! @thingsiplay@beehaw.org 👍
-E
solved it :)
It’s marked solved, but since OP didn’t post the solution:
-e
uses basic regular expressions, where you need to escape the meta-characters ((|)
) with a backslash. Alternatively, use extended regex with-E
$ echo a | grep -E "(a|b)" a $ echo a | grep -e "\(a\|b\)" a $ echo a | grep -e "(a|b)" $ echo a | grep -E "\(a\|b\)"
Do you get output if you use that exact
tail
command without thegrep
pipe?Yes