Question

how tp grep for tab characters

Asked by: she123

Hi ,
            I need to search for a tab characters in a file, I have tried using teh below command but am not sure whether it is giving me the excat result as it is generating all the records from a file.
Ex: grep '\t' abc.txt

any help would be really appreciatable.

Thanks.

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Asked On
2009-09-16 at 06:50:49ID24736270
Tags

UNIX SHELL

Topics

HP-UX Unix

,

KornShell (ksh)

,

Bourne-Again Shell (bash)

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
12

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Answers

 

by: jimfromsaPosted on 2009-09-16 at 07:05:48ID: 25345689

GREP \t filename should find it

 

by: liddlerPosted on 2009-09-16 at 07:14:50ID: 25345787

grep "<ctrl>v<tab>" abc.txt

 

by: woolmilkporcPosted on 2009-09-16 at 07:29:03ID: 25345941

Don't use <CTRL-v> in ksh, because it will give version information.

When in ksh, use grep "<TAB>" abc.txt

 

by: she123Posted on 2009-09-16 at 07:57:08ID: 25346291

here,
      grep "<TAB>" abc.txt

    doesnt it conider   "<TAB>"   as a sring. or it does have any significance.
   I have just typed exactly the same as above command but it didnt display any results.
 

 

by: liddlerPosted on 2009-09-16 at 08:02:11ID: 25346349

which shell are you using?  I'm using bash and needed the <CTRL>v

 

by: woolmilkporcPosted on 2009-09-16 at 08:02:50ID: 25346357

With <TAB> I mean pressing the TAB key ...

 

by: she123Posted on 2009-09-16 at 08:18:20ID: 25346544

I am using ksh,
 
I am entering all the special characters (which causes processing the record fail)  in a file like
I created a file file.pattern  and I enetered al the special characters(>, !, %, * including tab )  in that file
and grep a abc.txt file for the special characters like the below command.
 
Ex: grep -f file.pattern abc.txt

This file.pattern should also contain tab character.  

 

by: nemws1Posted on 2009-09-16 at 08:34:02ID: 25346744

awk is much more universal here than grep:

awk "/\t/" abc.txt

                                              
1:

Select allOpen in new window

 

by: she123Posted on 2009-09-16 at 08:41:27ID: 25346835

Thanks guys,

both  grep "<TAB>" abc.txt and awk "/\t/" abc.txt both amazingly worked.

Thanks again for all your help.



 

 

by: nemws1Posted on 2009-09-16 at 21:19:08ID: 25352848

Based on http:#25346835, it looks like answers http:#25345941 and http:#25346744 (this one should be assigned fewer points than the first, since the answer is not actually using 'grep')

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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