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I'm completing a command line game/challenge that involves solving a murder mystery.

One of the steps is to search for a suspect by using grep to search for multiple keywords in one file.

However that file contains thousands of lines of text that has the following format:

License Plate: L337ZR9
Make: Honda
Color: Red
Owner: Katie Park
Height: 6'2"

I have tried using grep in the following ways:

cat vehicles | grep -i 'L337' | grep -i 'honda'
ls | grep -i 'honda\|blue\|L337'

But as i understand it these commands will give me any result that matches any one of my three search terms.

What command do i need to search the vehicle file and display matches only match for Blue Honda with license plate of L337 - in other words what command allows grep to find and display results of multiple matching search terms?

Max Stevenson
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2 Answers2

2

Use GNU grep.

Example

Source

License Plate: L337ZR9
Make: Honda
Color: Blue
Owner: Katie Park
Height: 6'2"
License Plate: L338ZR9
Make: Honda
Color: Black
Owner: James Park
Height: 6'0"

Command

grep -Pzo '\w+:\s*L337ZR9\n\w+:\s+Honda\n\w+:\s*Blue' file

Result

Plate: L337ZR9
Make: Honda
Color: Blue

Explanation

From grep man:

   -z, --null-data
          Treat the input as a set of lines,

NOTE: grep (GNU grep) 2.20 tested

Juan Diego Godoy Robles
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1

First realize that you are grepping records, not lines.

So merge the 5 line records into a single line:

cat licenseplates | paste - - - - -

Now it is suddenly easy to grep:

cat licenseplates | paste - - - - - |
  grep -i 'L337' | grep -i 'honda' | grep -i blue

Finally you need to fold the matching lines back into 5 line records:

cat licenseplates | paste - - - - - |
  grep -i 'L337' | grep -i 'honda' | grep -i blue |
  sed 's/\t/\n/g'
Ole Tange
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