Provided by: pcregrep_8.39-12ubuntu0.1_amd64 bug

NAME

       pcregrep - a grep with Perl-compatible regular expressions.

SYNOPSIS

       pcregrep  [options]  [long  options]  [pattern]  [path1  path2  ...]   zpcregrep [options] [long options]
       [pattern] [file1 file2 ...]

DESCRIPTION


       pcregrep searches files for character patterns, in the same way as other grep commands do,  but  it  uses
       the  PCRE regular expression library to support patterns that are compatible with the regular expressions
       of Perl 5. See pcresyntax(3) for a quick-reference summary of pattern syntax,  or  pcrepattern(3)  for  a
       full description of the syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that PCRE supports.

       Patterns,  whether  supplied on the command line or in a separate file, are given without delimiters. For
       example:

         pcregrep Thursday /etc/motd

       If you attempt to use delimiters (for example, by surrounding a pattern with slashes,  as  is  common  in
       Perl  scripts),  they  are  interpreted  as  part of the pattern. Quotes can of course be used to delimit
       patterns on the command line because they are interpreted by the shell, and indeed quotes are required if
       a pattern contains white space or shell metacharacters.

       The  first  argument that follows any option settings is treated as the single pattern to be matched when
       neither -e nor -f is present.  Conversely, when one  or  both  of  these  options  are  used  to  specify
       patterns, all arguments are treated as path names. At least one of -e, -f, or an argument pattern must be
       provided.

       If no files are specified, pcregrep reads the standard input. The standard input can also  be  referenced
       by a name consisting of a single hyphen.  For example:

         pcregrep some-pattern /file1 - /file3

       By  default, each line that matches a pattern is copied to the standard output, and if there is more than
       one file, the file name is output at the start of each line, followed by  a  colon.  However,  there  are
       options  that  can  change how pcregrep behaves. In particular, the -M option makes it possible to search
       for patterns that span line boundaries. What defines a line boundary is controlled by the -N  (--newline)
       option.

       The  amount  of  memory used for buffering files that are being scanned is controlled by a parameter that
       can be set by the --buffer-size option.  The default value for this parameter is specified when  pcregrep
       is  built,  with the default default being 20K. A block of memory three times this size is used (to allow
       for buffering "before" and "after" lines). An error occurs if a line overflows the buffer.

       Patterns can be no longer than 8K or BUFSIZ bytes, whichever  is  the  greater.   BUFSIZ  is  defined  in
       <stdio.h>.  When  there  is more than one pattern (specified by the use of -e and/or -f), each pattern is
       applied to each line in the order in which they are defined, except that all the -e  patterns  are  tried
       before the -f patterns.

       By  default,  as  soon  as  one  pattern  matches a line, no further patterns are considered. However, if
       --colour (or --color) is used to colour the matching substrings, or if  --only-matching,  --file-offsets,
       or --line-offsets is used to output only the part of the line that matched (either shown literally, or as
       an offset), scanning resumes immediately following the match, so that further matches on  the  same  line
       can  be  found.  If  there  are  multiple  patterns, they are all tried on the remainder of the line, but
       patterns that follow the one that matched are not tried on the earlier part of the line.

       This behaviour means that the order in which multiple patterns are specified can affect the  output  when
       one  of the above options is used. This is no longer the same behaviour as GNU grep, which now manages to
       display earlier matches for later patterns (as long as there is no overlap).

       Patterns that can match an empty string are accepted, but empty string matches are never  recognized.  An
       example  is  the  pattern  "(super)?(man)?", in which all components are optional. This pattern finds all
       occurrences of both "super" and "man"; the output differs from matching with "super|man"  when  only  the
       matching substrings are being shown.

       If  the  LC_ALL  or  LC_CTYPE  environment  variable is set, pcregrep uses the value to set a locale when
       calling the PCRE library.  The --locale option can be used to override this.

       zpcregrep is a wrapper script that allows pcregrep to work on gzip compressed files.

SUPPORT FOR COMPRESSED FILES


       It is possible to compile pcregrep so that it uses libz or libbz2 to read files whose names end in .gz or
       .bz2,  respectively. You can find out whether your binary has support for one or both of these file types
       by running it with the --help option. If the appropriate support is not present,  files  are  treated  as
       plain text. The standard input is always so treated.

BINARY FILES


       By default, a file that contains a binary zero byte within the first 1024 bytes is identified as a binary
       file, and is processed specially. (GNU grep also  identifies  binary  files  in  this  manner.)  See  the
       --binary-files option for a means of changing the way binary files are handled.

OPTIONS


       The  order  in  which  some  of the options appear can affect the output. For example, both the -h and -l
       options affect the printing of file names. Whichever comes later in the command line will be the one that
       takes  effect.  Similarly,  except  where  noted below, if an option is given twice, the later setting is
       used. Numerical values for options may be followed by K or  M,  to  signify  multiplication  by  1024  or
       1024*1024 respectively.

       --        This  terminates  the list of options. It is useful if the next item on the command line starts
                 with a hyphen but is not an option. This allows for the processing of  patterns  and  filenames
                 that start with hyphens.

       -A number, --after-context=number
                 Output  number  lines of context after each matching line. If filenames and/or line numbers are
                 being output, a hyphen separator is used instead of a colon  for  the  context  lines.  A  line
                 containing  "--"  is  output between each group of lines, unless they are in fact contiguous in
                 the input file. The value of number is expected  to  be  relatively  small.  However,  pcregrep
                 guarantees to have up to 8K of following text available for context output.

       -a, --text
                 Treat binary files as text. This is equivalent to --binary-files=text.

       -B number, --before-context=number
                 Output  number lines of context before each matching line. If filenames and/or line numbers are
                 being output, a hyphen separator is used instead of a colon  for  the  context  lines.  A  line
                 containing  "--"  is  output between each group of lines, unless they are in fact contiguous in
                 the input file. The value of number is expected  to  be  relatively  small.  However,  pcregrep
                 guarantees to have up to 8K of preceding text available for context output.

       --binary-files=word
                 Specify  how  binary  files are to be processed. If the word is "binary" (the default), pattern
                 matching is performed on binary files, but the only output is "Binary file <name> matches" when
                 a match succeeds. If the word is "text", which is equivalent to the -a or --text option, binary
                 files are processed in the same way as any other file. In this case, when a match succeeds, the
                 output  may  be binary garbage, which can have nasty effects if sent to a terminal. If the word
                 is "without-match", which is equivalent to the -I option, binary files  are  not  processed  at
                 all; they are assumed not to be of interest.

       --buffer-size=number
                 Set  the  parameter  that  controls  how much memory is used for buffering files that are being
                 scanned.

       -C number, --context=number
                 Output number lines of context both before and after each matching line.  This is equivalent to
                 setting both -A and -B to the same value.

       -c, --count
                 Do not output individual lines from the files that are being scanned; instead output the number
                 of lines that would otherwise have been shown. If no lines are selected,  the  number  zero  is
                 output. If several files are are being scanned, a count is output for each of them. However, if
                 the --files-with-matches option is also used, only those files whose counts  are  greater  than
                 zero are listed. When -c is used, the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored.

       --colour, --color
                 If  this  option  is  given  without any data, it is equivalent to "--colour=auto".  If data is
                 required, it must be given in the same shell item, separated by an equals sign.

       --colour=value, --color=value
                 This option specifies under what circumstances the parts of  a  line  that  matched  a  pattern
                 should  be  coloured in the output. By default, the output is not coloured. The value (which is
                 optional, see above) may be "never", "always", or "auto". In the latter case, colouring happens
                 only  if the standard output is connected to a terminal. More resources are used when colouring
                 is enabled, because pcregrep has to search for all possible matches in a line, not just one, in
                 order to colour them all.

                 The colour that is used can be specified by setting the environment variable PCREGREP_COLOUR or
                 PCREGREP_COLOR. The value of this variable should be a string of two numbers,  separated  by  a
                 semicolon.  They  are copied directly into the control string for setting colour on a terminal,
                 so it is your responsibility to ensure that they make sense.  If  neither  of  the  environment
                 variables is set, the default is "1;31", which gives red.

       -D action, --devices=action
                 If  an  input  path  is  not  a regular file or a directory, "action" specifies how it is to be
                 processed. Valid values are "read" (the default) or "skip" (silently skip the path).

       -d action, --directories=action
                 If an input path is a directory, "action" specifies how it is to be  processed.   Valid  values
                 are  "read"  (the  default  in  non-Windows  environments,  for  compatibility  with GNU grep),
                 "recurse" (equivalent to the -r option), or "skip" (silently skip  the  path,  the  default  in
                 Windows environments). In the "read" case, directories are read as if they were ordinary files.
                 In some operating systems the effect of reading a directory like this is an  immediate  end-of-
                 file; in others it may provoke an error.

       -e pattern, --regex=pattern, --regexp=pattern
                 Specify  a  pattern  to  be matched. This option can be used multiple times in order to specify
                 several patterns. It can also be used as a way of specifying a single pattern that starts  with
                 a  hyphen.  When  -e is used, no argument pattern is taken from the command line; all arguments
                 are treated as file names. There is no limit to the number of patterns.  They  are  applied  to
                 each line in the order in which they are defined until one matches.

                 If  -f  is  used with -e, the command line patterns are matched first, followed by the patterns
                 from the file(s), independent of the order in which these  options  are  specified.  Note  that
                 multiple  use  of  -e  is  not the same as a single pattern with alternatives. For example, X|Y
                 finds the first character in a line that is X or Y, whereas  if  the  two  patterns  are  given
                 separately,  with X first, pcregrep finds X if it is present, even if it follows Y in the line.
                 It finds Y only if there is no X in the line.  This  matters  only  if  you  are  using  -o  or
                 --colo(u)r to show the part(s) of the line that matched.

       --exclude=pattern
                 Files  (but not directories) whose names match the pattern are skipped without being processed.
                 This applies to all files, whether listed on the command line, obtained from --file-list, or by
                 scanning  a  directory.  The  pattern  is a PCRE regular expression, and is matched against the
                 final component of the file name, not the entire path. The -F, -w, and -x options do not  apply
                 to  this  pattern.  The  option  may  be given any number of times in order to specify multiple
                 patterns. If a file name matches both an --include and an --exclude pattern,  it  is  excluded.
                 There is no short form for this option.

       --exclude-from=filename
                 Treat  each  non-empty line of the file as the data for an --exclude option. What constitutes a
                 newline when reading the file is the operating system's default. The --newline  option  has  no
                 effect  on this option. This option may be given more than once in order to specify a number of
                 files to read.

       --exclude-dir=pattern
                 Directories whose names match the pattern are skipped without  being  processed,  whatever  the
                 setting  of  the  --recursive  option.  This  applies to all directories, whether listed on the
                 command line, obtained from --file-list, or by scanning a parent directory. The  pattern  is  a
                 PCRE  regular expression, and is matched against the final component of the directory name, not
                 the entire path. The -F, -w, and -x options do not apply to this pattern.  The  option  may  be
                 given  any  number  of  times in order to specify more than one pattern. If a directory matches
                 both --include-dir and --exclude-dir, it is excluded. There is no short form for this option.

       -F, --fixed-strings
                 Interpret each data-matching pattern as a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines, instead
                 of  as  a  regular expression. What constitutes a newline for this purpose is controlled by the
                 --newline option. The -w (match as a word) and -x (match whole line) options can be  used  with
                 -F.   They  apply  to each of the fixed strings. A line is selected if any of the fixed strings
                 are found in it (subject to -w or -x, if present). This option applies  only  to  the  patterns
                 that  are matched against the contents of files; it does not apply to patterns specified by any
                 of the --include or --exclude options.

       -f filename, --file=filename
                 Read patterns from the file, one per line, and match them against  each  line  of  input.  What
                 constitutes  a  newline  when reading the file is the operating system's default. The --newline
                 option has no effect on this option. Trailing white space is removed from each line, and  blank
                 lines  are  ignored. An empty file contains no patterns and therefore matches nothing. See also
                 the comments about  multiple  patterns  versus  a  single  pattern  with  alternatives  in  the
                 description of -e above.

                 If this option is given more than once, all the specified files are read. A data line is output
                 if any of the patterns match it. A filename can be given as "-" to refer to the standard input.
                 When  -f is used, patterns specified on the command line using -e may also be present; they are
                 tested before the file's patterns. However, no other pattern is taken from  the  command  line;
                 all arguments are treated as the names of paths to be searched.

       --file-list=filename
                 Read  a  list  of  files and/or directories that are to be scanned from the given file, one per
                 line. Trailing white space is removed from each line, and blank lines are ignored. These  paths
                 are  processed before any that are listed on the command line. The filename can be given as "-"
                 to refer to the standard input.  If --file and --file-list are both specified as "-",  patterns
                 are  read  first. This is useful only when the standard input is a terminal, from which further
                 lines (the list of files) can be read after an end-of-file indication. If this option is  given
                 more than once, all the specified files are read.

       --file-offsets
                 Instead  of  showing  lines or parts of lines that match, show each match as an offset from the
                 start of the file and a length, separated by a comma. In this mode, no context is  shown.  That
                 is,  the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored. If there is more than one match in a line, each of
                 them is shown separately. This option is mutually exclusive  with  --line-offsets  and  --only-
                 matching.

       -H, --with-filename
                 Force  the inclusion of the filename at the start of output lines when searching a single file.
                 By default, the filename is not shown in  this  case.  For  matching  lines,  the  filename  is
                 followed  by  a  colon; for context lines, a hyphen separator is used. If a line number is also
                 being output, it follows the file name.

       -h, --no-filename
                 Suppress the output filenames when searching multiple files. By default,  filenames  are  shown
                 when  multiple files are searched. For matching lines, the filename is followed by a colon; for
                 context lines, a hyphen separator is used.  If a line number is also being output,  it  follows
                 the file name.

       --help    Output  a  help message, giving brief details of the command options and file type support, and
                 then exit. Anything else on the command line is ignored.

       -I        Treat binary files as never matching. This is equivalent to --binary-files=without-match.

       -i, --ignore-case
                 Ignore upper/lower case distinctions during comparisons.

       --include=pattern
                 If any --include patterns are specified, the only files that are processed are those that match
                 one  of  the  patterns  (and  do  not  match an --exclude pattern). This option does not affect
                 directories, but it applies to all files, whether listed on the  command  line,  obtained  from
                 --file-list,  or  by  scanning  a  directory.  The pattern is a PCRE regular expression, and is
                 matched against the final component of the file name, not the entire path. The -F, -w,  and  -x
                 options  do  not  apply to this pattern. The option may be given any number of times. If a file
                 name matches both an --include and an --exclude pattern, it is excluded.   There  is  no  short
                 form for this option.

       --include-from=filename
                 Treat  each  non-empty line of the file as the data for an --include option. What constitutes a
                 newline for this purpose is the operating system's default. The --newline option has no  effect
                 on this option. This option may be given any number of times; all the files are read.

       --include-dir=pattern
                 If  any --include-dir patterns are specified, the only directories that are processed are those
                 that match one of the patterns (and do not match an --exclude-dir pattern). This applies to all
                 directories,  whether  listed  on the command line, obtained from --file-list, or by scanning a
                 parent directory. The pattern is a PCRE regular expression, and is matched  against  the  final
                 component  of  the directory name, not the entire path. The -F, -w, and -x options do not apply
                 to this pattern. The option may be given any number of  times.  If  a  directory  matches  both
                 --include-dir and --exclude-dir, it is excluded. There is no short form for this option.

       -L, --files-without-match
                 Instead  of  outputting  lines  from  the files, just output the names of the files that do not
                 contain any lines that would have been output. Each file name is output  once,  on  a  separate
                 line.

       -l, --files-with-matches
                 Instead of outputting lines from the files, just output the names of the files containing lines
                 that would have been output. Each file name is output  once,  on  a  separate  line.  Searching
                 normally stops as soon as a matching line is found in a file. However, if the -c (count) option
                 is also used, matching continues in order to obtain the correct count,  and  those  files  that
                 have  at least one match are listed along with their counts. Using this option with -c is a way
                 of suppressing the listing of files with no matches.

       --label=name
                 This option supplies a name to be used for the standard input when file names are being output.
                 If not supplied, "(standard input)" is used. There is no short form for this option.

       --line-buffered
                 When  this option is given, input is read and processed line by line, and the output is flushed
                 after each write. By default, input is read in large chunks, unless pcregrep can determine that
                 it  is  reading  from  a terminal (which is currently possible only in Unix-like environments).
                 Output to terminal is normally automatically flushed by the operating system. This  option  can
                 be useful when the input or output is attached to a pipe and you do not want pcregrep to buffer
                 up large amounts of data. However, its use will affect  performance,  and  the  -M  (multiline)
                 option ceases to work.

       --line-offsets
                 Instead  of  showing  lines or parts of lines that match, show each match as a line number, the
                 offset from the start of the line, and a length. The line number is terminated by a  colon  (as
                 usual; see the -n option), and the offset and length are separated by a comma. In this mode, no
                 context is shown.  That is, the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored. If there is more  than  one
                 match  in  a  line,  each  of  them is shown separately. This option is mutually exclusive with
                 --file-offsets and --only-matching.

       --locale=locale-name
                 This option specifies a locale to be used for pattern matching. It overrides the value  in  the
                 LC_ALL or LC_CTYPE environment variables. If no locale is specified, the PCRE library's default
                 (usually the "C" locale) is used. There is no short form for this option.

       --match-limit=number
                 Processing some regular expression patterns can require a very large amount of memory,  leading
                 in  some  cases  to a program crash if not enough is available.  Other patterns may take a very
                 long time to search for all possible matching strings. The pcre_exec() function that is  called
                 by pcregrep to do the matching has two parameters that can limit the resources that it uses.

                 The  --match-limit  option provides a means of limiting resource usage when processing patterns
                 that are not going to match, but which have a very  large  number  of  possibilities  in  their
                 search  trees. The classic example is a pattern that uses nested unlimited repeats. Internally,
                 PCRE uses a function called match() which it  calls  repeatedly  (sometimes  recursively).  The
                 limit  set  by --match-limit is imposed on the number of times this function is called during a
                 match, which has the effect of limiting the amount of backtracking that can take place.

                 The --recursion-limit option is similar to --match-limit, but instead  of  limiting  the  total
                 number  of  times that match() is called, it limits the depth of recursive calls, which in turn
                 limits the amount of memory that can be used. The recursion depth is a smaller number than  the
                 total  number  of  calls,  because not all calls to match() are recursive. This limit is of use
                 only if it is set smaller than --match-limit.

                 There are no short forms for these options. The default settings are specified  when  the  PCRE
                 library is compiled, with the default default being 10 million.

       -M, --multiline
                 Allow  patterns  to  match more than one line. When this option is given, patterns may usefully
                 contain literal newline characters and internal occurrences of ^ and $ characters.  The  output
                 for a successful match may consist of more than one line, the last of which is the one in which
                 the match ended. If the matched string ends with a newline sequence the output ends at the  end
                 of that line.

                 When  this  option is set, the PCRE library is called in "multiline" mode.  There is a limit to
                 the number of lines that can be matched, imposed by the way that  pcregrep  buffers  the  input
                 file  as  it scans it. However, pcregrep ensures that at least 8K characters or the rest of the
                 document (whichever is the shorter) are available  for  forward  matching,  and  similarly  the
                 previous  8K characters (or all the previous characters, if fewer than 8K) are guaranteed to be
                 available for lookbehind assertions. This option does not work when input is read line by  line
                 (see --line-buffered.)

       -N newline-type, --newline=newline-type
                 The PCRE library supports five different conventions for indicating the ends of lines. They are
                 the single-character sequences CR  (carriage  return)  and  LF  (linefeed),  the  two-character
                 sequence  CRLF, an "anycrlf" convention, which recognizes any of the preceding three types, and
                 an "any" convention, in which any Unicode line ending sequence is assumed to end  a  line.  The
                 Unicode  sequences are the three just mentioned, plus VT (vertical tab, U+000B), FF (form feed,
                 U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028),  and  PS  (paragraph  separator,
                 U+2029).

                 When  the PCRE library is built, a default line-ending sequence is specified.  This is normally
                 the standard sequence for the operating system. Unless  otherwise  specified  by  this  option,
                 pcregrep  uses  the  library's  default.  The possible values for this option are CR, LF, CRLF,
                 ANYCRLF, or ANY. This makes it possible to use pcregrep to scan files that have come from other
                 environments  without  having  to  modify their line endings. If the data that is being scanned
                 does not agree with the convention set by this option, pcregrep may  behave  in  strange  ways.
                 Note  that  this  option  does  not  apply  to  files  specified  by the -f, --exclude-from, or
                 --include-from options, which are expected to  use  the  operating  system's  standard  newline
                 sequence.

       -n, --line-number
                 Precede each output line by its line number in the file, followed by a colon for matching lines
                 or a hyphen for context lines. If the filename is also  being  output,  it  precedes  the  line
                 number. This option is forced if --line-offsets is used.

       --no-jit  If  the  PCRE  library  is  built  with  support  for  just-in-time  compiling (which speeds up
                 matching), pcregrep automatically makes use of this, unless it was explicitly disabled at build
                 time. This option can be used to disable the use of JIT at run time. It is provided for testing
                 and working round problems.  It should never be needed in normal use.

       -o, --only-matching
                 Show only the part of the line that matched a pattern instead of the whole line. In this  mode,
                 no context is shown. That is, the -A, -B, and -C options are ignored. If there is more than one
                 match in a line, each of them is shown separately. If -o is combined with -v (invert the  sense
                 of  the  match  to find non-matching lines), no output is generated, but the return code is set
                 appropriately. If the matched portion of the line is empty, nothing is output unless  the  file
                 name or line number are being printed, in which case they are shown on an otherwise empty line.
                 This option is mutually exclusive with --file-offsets and --line-offsets.

       -onumber, --only-matching=number
                 Show only the part of the line that matched the capturing parentheses of the given  number.  Up
                 to  32  capturing  parentheses  are  supported,  and  -o0 is equivalent to -o without a number.
                 Because these options can be given without an argument (see above), if an argument is  present,
                 it  must  be  given in the same shell item, for example, -o3 or --only-matching=2. The comments
                 given for the non-argument case above also apply to  this  case.  If  the  specified  capturing
                 parentheses do not exist in the pattern, or were not set in the match, nothing is output unless
                 the file name or line number are being printed.

                 If this option is given multiple times, multiple  substrings  are  output,  in  the  order  the
                 options  are  given.  For  example,  -o3  -o1  -o3  causes  the substrings matched by capturing
                 parentheses 3 and 1 and then 3 again to be output. By default, there is no separator  (but  see
                 the next option).

       --om-separator=text
                 Specify  a  separating  string  for multiple occurrences of -o. The default is an empty string.
                 Separating strings are never coloured.

       -q, --quiet
                 Work quietly, that is, display nothing except error messages. The exit status indicates whether
                 or not any matches were found.

       -r, --recursive
                 If  any  given  path is a directory, recursively scan the files it contains, taking note of any
                 --include and --exclude settings. By default, a directory is read as a  normal  file;  in  some
                 operating  systems  this gives an immediate end-of-file. This option is a shorthand for setting
                 the -d option to "recurse".

       --recursion-limit=number
                 See --match-limit above.

       -s, --no-messages
                 Suppress error messages about non-existent or unreadable files. Such files are quietly skipped.
                 However, the return code is still 2, even if matches were found in other files.

       -u, --utf-8
                 Operate  in  UTF-8  mode.  This  option  is available only if PCRE has been compiled with UTF-8
                 support. All patterns (including those for any --exclude and --include options) and all subject
                 lines that are scanned must be valid strings of UTF-8 characters.

       -V, --version
                 Write  the  version  numbers  of  pcregrep and the PCRE library to the standard output and then
                 exit. Anything else on the command line is ignored.

       -v, --invert-match
                 Invert the sense of the match, so that lines which do not match any of  the  patterns  are  the
                 ones that are found.

       -w, --word-regex, --word-regexp
                 Force  the patterns to match only whole words. This is equivalent to having \b at the start and
                 end of the pattern. This option applies only to the  patterns  that  are  matched  against  the
                 contents of files; it does not apply to patterns specified by any of the --include or --exclude
                 options.

       -x, --line-regex, --line-regexp
                 Force the patterns to be anchored (each must start matching at the beginning of a line) and  in
                 addition,  require  them to match entire lines. This is equivalent to having ^ and $ characters
                 at the start and end of each alternative branch in every pattern. This option applies  only  to
                 the  patterns  that  are  matched  against the contents of files; it does not apply to patterns
                 specified by any of the --include or --exclude options.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES


       The environment variables LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE are examined, in that order, for a locale.  The  first  one
       that  is  set  is  used.  This  can  be  overridden by the --locale option. If no locale is set, the PCRE
       library's default (usually the "C" locale) is used.

NEWLINES


       The -N (--newline) option allows pcregrep to scan files  with  different  newline  conventions  from  the
       default.  Any  parts  of  the input files that are written to the standard output are copied identically,
       with whatever newline sequences they have in the input. However, the setting  of  this  option  does  not
       affect  the interpretation of files specified by the -f, --exclude-from, or --include-from options, which
       are assumed to use the operating system's standard newline sequence, nor does it affect the way in  which
       pcregrep  writes  informational  messages to the standard error and output streams. For these it uses the
       string "\n" to indicate newlines, relying on the  C  I/O  library  to  convert  this  to  an  appropriate
       sequence.

OPTIONS COMPATIBILITY


       Many  of the short and long forms of pcregrep's options are the same as in the GNU grep program. Any long
       option of the form --xxx-regexp (GNU terminology) is also available as  --xxx-regex  (PCRE  terminology).
       However,  the  --file-list,  --file-offsets,  --include-dir, --line-offsets, --locale, --match-limit, -M,
       --multiline, -N, --newline, --om-separator, --recursion-limit, -u, and --utf-8 options  are  specific  to
       pcregrep, as is the use of the --only-matching option with a capturing parentheses number.

       Although  most of the common options work the same way, a few are different in pcregrep. For example, the
       --include option's argument is a glob for GNU grep, but a regular expression for pcregrep. If both the -c
       and -l options are given, GNU grep lists only file names, without counts, but pcregrep gives the counts.

OPTIONS WITH DATA


       There  are  four different ways in which an option with data can be specified.  If a short form option is
       used, the data may follow immediately, or (with one  exception)  in  the  next  command  line  item.  For
       example:

         -f/some/file
         -f /some/file

       The  exception  is  the  -o  option,  which may appear with or without data.  Because of this, if data is
       present, it must follow immediately in the same item, for example -o3.

       If a long form option is used, the data may appear in the same command line item, separated by an  equals
       character, or (with two exceptions) it may appear in the next command line item. For example:

         --file=/some/file
         --file /some/file

       Note,  however,  that  if you want to supply a file name beginning with ~ as data in a shell command, and
       have the shell expand ~ to a home directory, you must separate the file name from the option, because the
       shell does not treat ~ specially unless it is at the start of an item.

       The exceptions to the above are the --colour (or --color) and --only-matching options, for which the data
       is optional. If one of these options does have data, it must be given in the first form, using an  equals
       character. Otherwise pcregrep will assume that it has no data.

MATCHING ERRORS


       It is possible to supply a regular expression that takes a very long time to fail to match certain lines.
       Such patterns normally involve nested indefinite repeats, for example: (a+)*\d  when  matched  against  a
       line  of a's with no final digit. The PCRE matching function has a resource limit that causes it to abort
       in these circumstances. If this happens, pcregrep outputs an error message and the line that  caused  the
       problem to the standard error stream. If there are more than 20 such errors, pcregrep gives up.

       The  --match-limit  option  of  pcregrep can be used to set the overall resource limit; there is a second
       option called --recursion-limit that sets a limit on the amount of memory (usually stack)  that  is  used
       (see the discussion of these options above).

DIAGNOSTICS


       Exit status is 0 if any matches were found, 1 if no matches were found, and 2 for syntax errors, overlong
       lines, non-existent or inaccessible files (even if matches  were  found  in  other  files)  or  too  many
       matching  errors. Using the -s option to suppress error messages about inaccessible files does not affect
       the return code.

SEE ALSO


       pcrepattern(3), pcresyntax(3), pcretest(1).

AUTHOR


       Philip Hazel
       University Computing Service
       Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.

REVISION


       Last updated: 03 April 2014
       Copyright (c) 1997-2014 University of Cambridge.