"grep -p" functionality in linux

[MakOwner]

I don't know if this is the right spot for this - if a moderator knows of a better forum, would you please move it?

I learned to write korn shell scripts in AIX and the grep command there has the -p "paragraph" function/parameter. I'm sure most everyone is familiar with this, it's incredibly useful when parsing log files in scripts.

gnu grep doesn't have this functionality, although it's been requested a number of times -- requests for this functionality usually meet a response like this: http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?14630#discussion

Which are great if you are doing it as a one off command line thing, but try doing that with variables in a script and for me at least they fail miserably.


Are there ways to reproduce this behavior in linux that I'm just dumb enough not to know about?
Anyone interested in banding together and recreating the feature?

[mario.niessner]

Paragrep works for me...

http://software.clapper.org/paragrep/

Hope it will for you.

[MakOwner]

Paragrep works for me...

http://software.clapper.org/paragrep/

Hope it will for you.

I can't get it installed.

The version called by the pip and easy_install program is version 3.1.0
That version doesn't exist at the URL where the installer is directed.
There doesn't appear to be anyway to direct the installer to use an earlier or local version of the package.

Any ideas?

[rubylaser]

Why don't you just grab the source from the git repo?

apt-get install git

git clone git://github.com/bmc/paragrep.git

cd paragrep

python setup.py install

[MakOwner]

Why don't you just grab the source from the git repo?

apt-get install git

git clone git://github.com/bmc/paragrep.git

cd paragrep

python setup.py install

Working on that now.

[MakOwner]

Working on that now.

Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/any/g/grizzled-python/grizzled-python-1.0.3.linux-x86_64.tar.gz#md5=dcd4e2506db7320d215eefcd2b16c17f
Processing grizzled-python-1.0.3.linux-x86_64.tar.gz
error: Couldn't find a setup script in /tmp/easy_install-epn7M4/grizzled-python-1.0.3.linux-x86_64.tar.gz

On to other things for the day.

This is on Centos 6.2, by the way, so no easy apt repository to use.

[hawkmage]

This is on Centos 6.2, by the way, so no easy apt repository to use.

OK, I have to ask. Why are you posting this to a Ubuntu Server forum if you are running CentOS?

Since I deal with both flavors of Linux you may want to try the following to install get:

sudo yum install get

[rubylaser]

OK, I have to ask. Why are you posting this to a Ubuntu Server forum if you are running CentOS?

Since I deal with both flavors of Linux you may want to try the following to install get:

sudo yum install get

I assume you mean this

sudo yum install git

[rubylaser]

Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/any/g/grizzled-python/grizzled-python-1.0.3.linux-x86_64.tar.gz#md5=dcd4e2506db7320d215eefcd2b16c17f
Processing grizzled-python-1.0.3.linux-x86_64.tar.gz
error: Couldn't find a setup script in /tmp/easy_install-epn7M4/grizzled-python-1.0.3.linux-x86_64.tar.gz

On to other things for the day.

This is on Centos 6.2, by the way, so no easy apt repository to use.

That install script isn't working properly (I see similar errors with easy_install and the git repo). The work around for me was to install grizzled by itself, then remove the dependency from the setup.py file.

easy_install grizzled

Then, remove this line from your setup.py file.

install_requires = ['grizzled-python>=1.0', ],

Now, you should be able to get this working from the paragrep git download by running this again.

python setup.py install

I have it working now.

root@test:~# paragrep 
paragrep: error: Not enough arguments.
Not enough arguments.
Usage: 
paragrep [-aiov] [-p EOP_REGEXP] [-e REGEXP] ... [-f EXP_FILE] ... [file] ...
               -OR-
paragrep [-iv] [-p EOP_REGEXP] regexp [file] ...

Options:
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help            Show this message and exit.
  -a, --and             Logically AND all regular expressions.
  -e regexp, --regexp=regexp, --expr=regexp
                        Specify a regular expression to find.This option may
                        be specified multiple times.
  -f exprfile, --file=exprfile
                        Specify a file full of regular expressions, one per
                        line.
  -i, --caseblind       Match without regard to case.
  -o, --or              Logically OR all regular expressions.
  -p eop_regexp, --eop=eop_regexp
                        Specify an alternate regular expression to match end-
                        of-paragraph. Default: ^\s*$
  -P, --print-eop       Print the line that marks the end of each paragraph.
                        Default: False
  -v, --negate          Negate the sense of the match.

Hope that helps.

[David Andersson]

Other alternatives are awk and perl

awk -v RS="" -v ORS="\n\n" '/PATTERN/' [FILENAMES]

perl -000 -ne 'print if /PATTERN/' [FILENAMES]

(Differs from grep in that "/" in pattern must be escaped.)