How to grep for two words with a tab in between them

Question

I've got a file with with a list of words each delimited by tabs. I'm trying to use grep to search for two of the words, but I can't figure out how to include the tab in the search string. I've tried:

grep -i -e "word1 \tword2"

along with several variations, but I still can't figure it out. Anyhelp?

The answers below are helpful, but are also copying your example of a space followed by a tab. If your delimiter is only a tab, adjust accordingly. — Jeff Schaller, Sep 29 '15 at 11:04

cuonglm · Answer 1 · 2015-09-29T02:00:05.443

9

POSIXly:

grep "word1 $(printf '\t')word2" <file

Note that you need to escaped any characters in word1 and word2 if they're expanded by the shell.

In bash, zsh and ksh variants, you can use:

grep 'word1'$'\t''word2' <file

If you don't mind switching to awk:

awk '/word1 \tword2/' <file

will work in all POSIX systems.

edited Sep 29 '15 at 02:00

answered Sep 29 '15 at 01:54

cuonglm

153,898

$() is bash syntax. – 123 Sep 29 '15 at 08:25
1

@User112638726: It's POSIX, see http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_06_03 – cuonglm Sep 29 '15 at 08:29

score -2 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 29 '15 at 19:33

-2

You might like to try this:

grep -e "word1.*word2" inputfile.txt

edited Sep 29 '15 at 19:33

chaos

48,171

answered Sep 29 '15 at 01:46

rcjohnson

899

1

That does not match a tab character between two words. – jordanm Sep 29 '15 at 01:54
3

I think you have . and * around the wrong way. – Sep 29 '15 at 01:54
Answered before I had my coffee. Thanks @DarkHeart – rcjohnson Sep 29 '15 at 18:14

How to grep for two words with a tab in between them

2 Answers2