So I less my file:
less myFile.log
Then I try to search for a value:
/70.5
I've since learned less uses regex, so . is a wildcard. I've tried to escape it with no success.
/70\.5
will do the trick (inside less).
answered Jan 15 '19 at 16:39
-
5
You can turn off regex mode by hitting Ctrl+R before typing the pattern:
^R Don't interpret regular expression metacharacters; that is, do a simple textual comparison.
answered Jan 15 '19 at 16:51
-
-
@xeon48 likely it is - at least, I don't think
moresupports it (although other pagers may provide something equivalent) – steeldriver Jan 15 '19 at 16:54 -
-
@xeon48 : it seems specific to less, but there are some alternatives (
fgrep "something" file(s): will look for the exact string "something" in the file(s), doing a car by car comparison and not as a regexp) – Olivier Dulac Jan 16 '19 at 12:50
Two search expressions for numbers in less
/\.*[0-9]+\.* # for numbers
/[0-9]*\.[0-9]+ # for numbers with a decimal part
Regex to search for numbers (with or without a decimal)
This regex works in less but also in other cases where the same regex syntax is used.
\.*[0-9]+\.*
You start the search engine with /, so if you want to find decimal numbers, but avoid text with dots (like file.txt) or periods between sentences, I think the following string is rather good,
/\.*[0-9]+\.*
Test file
There are several ways to use a dot. Here are some examples:
- 'Period' finishing a sentence
- Short for current directory or 'source' command in linux shells
- Separator between the name and extension of a file
- Separator in between the integer part and decimal part of a number
- Separator in special numerical or litteral strings (for example IP adress)
The following regex expression is rather simple and can identify
- numbers
- numerial strings
\.*[0-9]+\.*
.bashrc
hello-0
170.5
text.txt
170
170.
.551
asdf 170.5 qwerty
192.168.1.1
file.000
file.001
Regex to search for numbers with a decimal part
This regex works in less but also in other cases where the same regex syntax is used.
[0-9]*\.[0-9]+
The corresponding search command is
/[0-9]*\.[0-9]+
It will also find numerical strings (for example IP address), in general digits after a dot (including digits before the dot, if any).
-
Thanks for this, it will come in useful. Though the lesson learned here is brush up on my regex :) – notAChance Jan 15 '19 at 16:48
-
1
[0-9]*\.[0-9]*matches on a single..*matches on zero or more. – Stéphane Chazelas Jan 15 '19 at 17:23 -
@StéphaneChazelas, Yes, I know, and I am busy trying to get around that without getting a complicated expression ... – sudodus Jan 15 '19 at 17:25
-
1
-
@StephenKitt, I think your first expression finds the same 'candidates' as my first string
\.*[0-9]+\.*in the current version of the answer. Your second string will exclude some of dots (which may be good or bad depending on what the user wants to see). – sudodus Jan 15 '19 at 19:47
70.5? Maybe there's a misunderstanding of "escape"? – Xen2050 Jan 18 '19 at 22:15