On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 08:03, Robert Land wrote: > This is a example one can find on one of the links > discribed in the deb HOWTO package: > > =Section Multipliers(text just pasted): > > > " > An example from the phone list: > .... > 1248 Kate 634 > .... > 1548 Kerry 534 > .... > > To match a line that starts with a 1, > has some digits, at least one space > and a name that starts with a K we can write: > > grep '^1[0-9]\{1,\} \{1,\}K' phonelist.txt > or use * and repeat [0-9] and space: > grep '^1[0-9][0-9]* *K' phonelist.txt > " > > > =Why, in the first example, has the author > prefaced the char 'K' with the one or more > times multiplier? He only wants to find a > name beginning with 'K'(!) > > Then, in the snd grep command he doubled > '[0-9]', wouldn't only '^1[0-9]*....'be > sufficent? Again, 'K' is prefaced with the > asterisk which doesn't seem necessary to me.
That \{1,\} in the first example applies to the space. * means to match 0 or more of the preceding character. Using [0-9][0-9]* means to match 0-9 1 or more times. As a side note the '+' character is supposed to do that (match 1 or more occurences) but I've never been able to get a match using it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]