Say I have a file that contains:
Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el6_2.0.1.1_x86_64.rpm Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el6_2.0.1.1_i686.rpm Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el7_2.0.1.1_x86_64.rpm Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el7_2.0.1.1_i686.rpm
I want to grep and match lines that only contain ‘package’, ‘el6’, and ‘x86_64’
How would I go about doing that on a one liner using grep? The line must match all three and grep shouldn’t care about how many characters are in between. If there is a better tool for the job, I’m happy to use that instead.
I’ve tried the following and got no results:
grep package*el6*x86_64*
Seeing posts and documentation, I understand that * does not mean the same thing as it would in shell. I’m looking for the equivalent of it to use in regex. Hope this makes sense.
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Answer
Your attempt is very close. * in shell glob terms is roughly equivalent to .* in regex terms. . means “any character” and * is means “repeated any number of times (including zero).
Your regex just needs . before each *. The trailing * is not necessary:
package.*el6.*x86_64
Here is a sample run with your input:
grep 'package.*el6.*x86_64' <<< "Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el6_2.0.1.1_x86_64.rpm Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el6_2.0.1.1_i686.rpm Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el7_2.0.1.1_x86_64.rpm Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el7_2.0.1.1_i686.rpm"
Prints:
Release 2.1 OS: RHEL File: package_el6_2.0.1.1_x86_64.rpm