xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/look/look.1 (revision cbb3ec25236ba72f91cbdf23f8b78b9d1af0cedf)
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28.\"     @(#)look.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/14/93
29.\"
30.Dd December 29, 2020
31.Dt LOOK 1
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm look
35.Nd display lines beginning with a given string
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Nm
38.Op Fl df
39.Op Fl t Ar termchar
40.Ar string
41.Op Ar
42.Sh DESCRIPTION
43The
44.Nm
45utility displays any lines in
46.Ar file
47which contain
48.Ar string
49as a prefix.
50As
51.Nm
52performs a binary search, the lines in
53.Ar file
54must be sorted.
55.Pp
56If
57.Ar file
58is not specified, the file
59.Pa /usr/share/dict/words
60is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of
61alphabetic characters is ignored.
62.Pp
63The following options are available:
64.Bl -tag -width indent
65.It Fl d , -alphanum
66Dictionary character set and order, i.e., only alphanumeric characters
67are compared.
68.It Fl f , -ignore-case
69Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.
70.It Fl t , -terminate Ar termchar
71Specify a string termination character, i.e., only the characters
72in
73.Ar string
74up to and including the first occurrence of
75.Ar termchar
76are compared.
77.El
78.Sh ENVIRONMENT
79The
80.Ev LANG , LC_ALL
81and
82.Ev LC_CTYPE
83environment variables affect the execution of the
84.Nm
85utility.
86Their effect is described in
87.Xr environ 7 .
88.Sh FILES
89.Bl -tag -width /usr/share/dict/words -compact
90.It Pa /usr/share/dict/words
91the dictionary
92.El
93.Sh EXIT STATUS
94The
95.Nm
96utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed,
971 if no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred.
98.Sh EXAMPLES
99Look for lines starting with
100.Ql xylene
101in the file
102.Pa /usr/share/dict/words :
103.Bd -literal -offset indent
104$ look xylen
105xylene
106xylenol
107xylenyl
108.Ed
109.Pp
110Same as above, but do not consider any characters in
111.Ar string
112beyond the first
113.Ql e .
114Note that
115.Fl f
116is implicit since we are searching the default file
117.Pa /usr/share/dict/words :
118.Bd -literal -offset indent
119$ look -t e xylen
120Xyleborus
121xylem
122xylene
123xylenol
124xylenyl
125xyletic
126.Ed
127.Sh COMPATIBILITY
128The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated
129in comparisons when the
130.Fl d
131option was specified.
132This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic
133implementation.
134.Pp
135The
136.Fl a
137and
138.Fl -alternative
139flags are ignored for compatibility.
140.Sh SEE ALSO
141.Xr grep 1 ,
142.Xr sort 1
143.Sh HISTORY
144A
145.Nm
146utility appeared in
147.At v7 .
148.Sh BUGS
149Lines are not compared according to the current locale's collating
150order.
151Input files must be sorted with
152.Ev LC_COLLATE
153set to
154.Ql C .
155