Grep fixed string is not grepping exact string, string end with extra character '-' is also coming

Question

There is an option in grep to search the exact string "-F"

-F, --fixed-strings

Its working perfectly fine if there are two words where one is the word to be searched and another is appended with alphaumeric character. However, if the other word contains some special character like '-' then grep -F or grep -w is not matching correct result.

grep -w "hello" test1
hello
hello-

cat test1 
hello
hello-
hellotest

ideally only first line should have come in result.

what if the line contains `hello sometext hello` ? – RomanPerekhrest Jun 01 '17 at 19:34 — RomanPerekhrest, Jun 01 '17 at 19:34

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 01 '17 at 19:31

2

- is not a word character so -w will still match hello as a complete word.

You can use -x option for exact match:

grep -Fx 'hello' test1

hello

answered Jun 01 '17 at 19:31

anubhava

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Grep fixed string is not grepping exact string, string end with extra character '-' is also coming

1 Answers1