NAME
look —
display lines beginning with a
given string
SYNOPSIS
look |
[-df]
[-t
termchar] string
[file] |
DESCRIPTION
The
look utility displays any lines in
file which contain
string as a
prefix. As
look performs a binary search, the lines in
file must be sorted.
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:
-
-
- -d
- Dictionary character set and order, i.e. only alphanumeric
characters are compared.
-
-
- -f
- Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.
-
-
- -t
- Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the
characters in string up to and including the first
occurrence of termchar are compared.
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.
FILES
- /usr/share/dict/words
- the dictionary
COMPATIBILITY
The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated in
comparisons when the
-d option was specified. This was
incorrect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.
SEE ALSO
grep(1),
sort(1)
HISTORY
look appeared in
Version 7 AT&T
UNIX.