Name

look — display lines beginning with a given string

Synopsis

look [options] string [file]

DESCRIPTION

The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string. As look performs a binary search, the lines in file must be sorted (where sort(1) was given the same options −dand/or −fthat look is invoked with).

If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of alphabetic characters is ignored.

OPTIONS

−a, −−alternative

Use the alternative dictionary file.

−d, −−alphanum

Use normal dictionary character set and order, i.e. only blanks and alphanumeric characters are compared. This is on by default if no file is specified.

Note that blanks have been added to dictionary character set for compatibility with sort −d command since version 2.28.

−f, −−ignore−case

Ignore the case of alphabetic characters. This is on by default if no file is specified.

−t, −−terminate character

Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence of character are compared.

−V, −−version

Display version information and exit.

−h, −−help

Display help text and exit.

The look utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1 if no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred.

EXAMPLE

sort -d /etc/passwd -o /tmp/look.dict
look -t: root:foobar /tmp/look.dict

FILES

/usr/share/dict/words

the dictionary

/usr/share/dict/web2

the alternative dictionary

SEE ALSO

grep(1), sort(1)

HISTORY

The look utility appeared in Version 7 AT&T Unix.

AVAILABILITY

The look command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.


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    (#)look.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/14/93