LOOK

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: June 2011
Index Return to Main Contents

---

 

NAME

look - display lines beginning with a given string  

SYNOPSIS

look [options] string [file]  

DESCRIPTION

The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string. As look performs a binary search, the lines in file must be sorted (where sort(1) was given the same options -d and/or -f that look is invoked with).

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

-a, --alternative

Use the alternative dictionary file.

-d, --alphanum

Use normal dictionary character set and order, i.e. only blanks and alphanumeric characters are compared. This is on by default if no file is specified.

Note that blanks have been added to dictionary character set for compatibility with sort -d command since version 2.28.

-f, --ignore-case

Ignore the case of alphabetic characters. This is on by default if no file is specified.

-t, --terminate character

Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence of character are compared.

-V, --version

Display version information and exit.

-h, --help

Display help text and exit.

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.  

EXAMPLE

sort -d /etc/passwd -o /tmp/look.dict
look -t: root:foobar /tmp/look.dict

 

FILES

/usr/share/dict/words

the dictionary

/usr/share/dict/web2

the alternative dictionary

 

SEE ALSO

grep(1), sort(1)  

HISTORY

The look utility appeared in Version 7 AT&T Unix.  

AVAILABILITY

The look command is part of the util-linux package and is available from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

---

 

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

EXAMPLE

FILES

SEE ALSO

HISTORY

AVAILABILITY