GNU/Linux |
Debian 4.0(Etch) |
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look(1) |
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LOOK(1) BSD General Commands Manual LOOK(1)
NAME
look — display lines beginning with a given string
SYNOPSIS
look [−df] [−t termchar] string [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string as a prefix.
If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of alphabetic characters is ignored.
Options:
−b
Use a binary search on the given word list. If you are ignoring case with −f or ignoring non-alphanumeric characters with −d, the file must be sorted in the same way. See sort(1) for more information on sorting files.
−d
Dictionary character set and order, i.e. only alphanumeric characters are compared.
−f
Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.
−t
Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence of termchar are compared.
The look utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1 if no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred.
FILES
/usr/share/dict/words
the dictionary
SEE ALSO
grep(1), sort(1)
COMPATIBILITY
The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated in comparisons when the −d option was specified. This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.
look uses a linear search by default instead of a binary search, which is what most other implementations use by default.
HISTORY
A look utility appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
BSD May 13, 2004 BSD
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look(1) | ![]() |