-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ned's comments on bash regular expressions were as follows: # I wrote a bash script and all but the two commands below were marked wrong, so I need to correct them. Hope you don't mind pointing out my mistakes: Well, I'll see what I can do. Here goes nothing! <smile> # 1. needs to output how many lines are there with a . (period) in them. I used the escape char \ before the period, but it apparently didn't work. # # echo Output the number of lines that have a \"\.\" \(period\): # grep -c \. ./test.file Try: echo Output the number of lines that have a \".\" \(period\): grep -c [.] ./test.file I can't explain it, but somehow it only works that way. Escaping the period doesn't help. It must be specified in a range by itself. # 2. this one needs to output the number of lines containing the string '/*': # # echo Output the number of lines that have the string \"'/'\*\": # grep -c /\* ./test.file Try this instead: echo Output the number of lines that have the string '"/*"': grep -c [/][*] ./test.file Again, each character seems as though it must be enclosed in range brackets by itself. Not exactly sure why without further digging in manpages for grep(1) and regex(3), which is something I may do in the future if the mood hits me, but as long as this works, I just don't feel like it right now. <smile> HTH, Lorenzo - -- "We decided that we should evaluate the Microsoft offerings first. Once we realised what a powerful set of tools they were, it became self-evident this was the right way to go down." Microsoft: the right way to go down -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCUcevG9IpekrhBfIRAs1uAJ9/qfMLcyIuzP19Tx8I5HlIbEC/VACeJHod RaMPPXLUHrKsBmDFYk2f2p4= =R6qv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
