unix telephone syntax with different ways of writing American phone numbers

Question

Ok so I need I have a .txt file with names followed by their respective phone numbers and need to grab all the numbers following the ###-###-#### syntax which I have accomplished with this code

grep -E "([0-9]{3})-[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}" telephonefile_P2

but my problem is that there are instances of

(###)-###-####

(###) ### ####

### ### ####

###-####

This is the file:

Sam Spade (212)-756-1045
Daffy Duck 312 450 2856
Mom 354-2015
Star Club 49 040–31 77 78 0
Lolita Spengler (816) 756 8657
Hoffman's Kleider 049 37 1836 027
Dr. Harold Kranzler 765-986-9987
Ralph Spoilsport's Motors 967 882 6534
Hermann's Speilhaus 49 25 8377 1765
Hal Kubrick 44 1289 332934
Sister Sue 978 0672
Auggie Keller 49 089/594 393
JCCC 913-469-8500

This is my desired output:

Sam Spade (212)-756-1045
Daffy Duck 312 450 2856
Mom 354-2015
Lolita Spengler (816) 756 8657
Dr. Harold Kranzler 765-986-9987
Ralph Spoilsport's Motors 967 882 6534
Sister Sue 978 0672
JCCC 913-469-8500

and I don't know how to account for these alternate forms... obviously new to Unix, please be gentle!

possible duplicate of [A comprehensive regex for phone number validation](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/123559/a-comprehensive-regex-for-phone-number-validation) — Andy Lester, Feb 24 '15 at 23:12

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 25 '15 at 19:50

$ awk '/(^|[[:space:]])(\(?[0-9]{3}\)?[- ])?[0-9]{3}[- ][0-9]{4}([[:space:]]|$)/' file
Sam Spade (212)-756-1045
Daffy Duck 312 450 2856
Mom 354-2015
Lolita Spengler (816) 756 8657
Dr. Harold Kranzler 765-986-9987
Ralph Spoilsport's Motors 967 882 6534
Sister Sue 978 0672
JCCC 913-469-8500

unix telephone syntax with different ways of writing American phone numbers

1 Answers1