xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/look/look.1 (revision 1db64f89363c97858961c4df0b7d02f3223723cf)
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28.Dd December 29, 2020
29.Dt LOOK 1
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm look
33.Nd display lines beginning with a given string
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.Nm
36.Op Fl df
37.Op Fl t Ar termchar
38.Ar string
39.Op Ar
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm
43utility displays any lines in
44.Ar file
45which contain
46.Ar string
47as a prefix.
48As
49.Nm
50performs a binary search, the lines in
51.Ar file
52must be sorted.
53.Pp
54If
55.Ar file
56is not specified, the file
57.Pa /usr/share/dict/words
58is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of
59alphabetic characters is ignored.
60.Pp
61The following options are available:
62.Bl -tag -width indent
63.It Fl d , -alphanum
64Dictionary character set and order, i.e., only alphanumeric characters
65are compared.
66.It Fl f , -ignore-case
67Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.
68.It Fl t , -terminate Ar termchar
69Specify a string termination character, i.e., only the characters
70in
71.Ar string
72up to and including the first occurrence of
73.Ar termchar
74are compared.
75.El
76.Sh ENVIRONMENT
77The
78.Ev LANG , LC_ALL
79and
80.Ev LC_CTYPE
81environment variables affect the execution of the
82.Nm
83utility.
84Their effect is described in
85.Xr environ 7 .
86.Sh FILES
87.Bl -tag -width /usr/share/dict/words -compact
88.It Pa /usr/share/dict/words
89the dictionary
90.El
91.Sh EXIT STATUS
92The
93.Nm
94utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed,
951 if no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred.
96.Sh EXAMPLES
97Look for lines starting with
98.Ql xylene
99in the file
100.Pa /usr/share/dict/words :
101.Bd -literal -offset indent
102$ look xylen
103xylene
104xylenol
105xylenyl
106.Ed
107.Pp
108Same as above, but do not consider any characters in
109.Ar string
110beyond the first
111.Ql e .
112Note that
113.Fl f
114is implicit since we are searching the default file
115.Pa /usr/share/dict/words :
116.Bd -literal -offset indent
117$ look -t e xylen
118Xyleborus
119xylem
120xylene
121xylenol
122xylenyl
123xyletic
124.Ed
125.Sh COMPATIBILITY
126The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated
127in comparisons when the
128.Fl d
129option was specified.
130This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic
131implementation.
132.Pp
133The
134.Fl a
135and
136.Fl -alternative
137flags are ignored for compatibility.
138.Sh SEE ALSO
139.Xr grep 1 ,
140.Xr sort 1
141.Sh HISTORY
142A
143.Nm
144utility appeared in
145.At v7 .
146.Sh BUGS
147Lines are not compared according to the current locale's collating
148order.
149Input files must be sorted with
150.Ev LC_COLLATE
151set to
152.Ql C .
153