Re: grep question using multiple lines

You might be able to do it in one line.

I am not sure what the criteria for finding the data is exactly. The example shows an email address, but you say the search text could be anything. Assuming per the example you are looking for the text following "constant=" up to the first space and there is only one instance per line, this worked for me:

perl -nle 'while(m/constant=(.*)\s/g){print "$1"}' /home/jamie/example
+.txt
[download]

I tend to oversimplify things, so it may not be what you are looking for. But it is one line and it returns the data you were looking for.

Jamie

Comment on Re: grep question using multiple lines Download Code

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Re^2: grep question using multiple lines by backstab (Novice) on Dec 28, 2008 at 03:58 UTC
Use the modifier notation might be of great style as well, `perl -nle 'print $1 while /constant=(.)\s/g' /home/jamie/txt` [download] But I remark the association of `-l` and `\s` vs. a more explicite regexp does not behave well in case of many matches on the same line! Try it for example with a txt file as follow, `xxxxxxxxx constant=foo@bar.com xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx constant=baz@huux.org xxxxxxx contant=hello@world.bye xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx` [download] will print, `foo@bar.com baz@huux.org xxxxxxx contant=hello@world.bye` [download] I think the problem comes from `(.)` that is greedy and matches even spaces at the condition there is at least one space remaining to satisfie `\s`. But I try `(.*?)` and the `/g` flag does not seem ok?	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: grep question using multiple lines by skx (Parson) on Dec 28, 2008 at 12:53 UTC
Indeed your match is greedy. Still we can change it as follows: $ perl -nle 'print $1 while /constant=(^ +)\s/g' < test.txt barney@gmail.com wilma@aol.com Steve --	[reply]