misc-utils/look.1

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  32 .\"     @(#)look.1      8.1 (Berkeley) 6/14/93
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  34 .TH LOOK 1 "June 2011" "util-linux" "User Commands"
  35 .SH NAME
  36 look \- display lines beginning with a given string
  37 .SH SYNOPSIS
  38 .B look
  39 [options]
  40 .IR "string " [ file ]
  41 .SH DESCRIPTION
  42 The
  43 .B look
  44 utility displays any lines in
  45 .I file
  46 which contain
  47 .IR string .
  48 As
  49 .B look
  50 performs a binary search, the lines in
  51 .I file
  52 must be sorted (where
  53 .BR sort (1)
  54 was given the same options
  55 .BR "\-d " and/or " \-f " that
  56 .B look
  57 is invoked with).
  58 .PP
  59 If
  60 .I file
  61 is not specified, the file
  62 .I /usr/share/dict/words
  63 is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of
  64 alphabetic characters is ignored.
  65 .SH OPTIONS
  66 .TP
  67 .BR \-a , " \-\-alternative"
  68 Use the alternative dictionary file.
  69 .TP
  70 .BR \-d , " \-\-alphanum"
  71 Use normal dictionary character set and order, i.e. only blanks and
  72 alphanumeric characters are compared.  This is on by default if no file is
  73 specified.
  74
  75 Note that blanks have been added to dictionary character set for
  76 compatibility with \fBsort \-d\fR command since version 2.28.
  77 .TP
  78 .BR \-f , " \-\-ignore\-case"
  79 Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.  This is on by default if no file is
  80 specified.
  81 .TP
  82 .BR \-t , " \-\-terminate " \fIcharacter\fR
  83 Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters
  84 in \fIstring\fR up to and including the first occurrence of \fIcharacter\fR
  85 are compared.
  86 .TP
  87 .BR \-V , " \-\-version"
  88 Display version information and exit.
  89 .TP
  90 .BR \-h , " \-\-help"
  91 Display help text and exit.
  92 .PP
  93 The
  94 .B look
  95 utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1 if
  96 no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred.
  97 .SH EXAMPLE
  98 .RS
  99 .nf
 100 sort -d /etc/passwd -o /tmp/look.dict
 101 look -t: root:foobar /tmp/look.dict
 102 .nf
 103 .RE
 104 .SH ENVIRONMENT
 105 .TP
 106 .B WORDLIST
 107 Path to a dictionary file.  The environment variable has greater priority
 108 than the dictionary path defined in FILES segment.
 109 .SH FILES
 110 .IP "\fB/usr/share/dict/words\fR" 4
 111 the dictionary
 112 .IP "\fB/usr/share/dict/web2\fR" 4
 113 the alternative dictionary
 114 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 115 .BR grep (1),
 116 .BR sort (1)
 117 .SH HISTORY
 118 The
 119 .B look
 120 utility appeared in Version 7 AT&T Unix.
 121 .SH AVAILABILITY
 122 The look command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 123 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.