variables can't be used in grep pattern matching

Question

I'm trying to use a shell script to get the string from one file, then use it to get the matched sentence.

The script looks like this:

function find_str (){
    echo $1
    grep -e "\/$1" info.txt
}

for word in $(<./name.TXT); do
   #egrep -w "$word" info.txt  #this can't work either
   find_str $word
done

It turns out that find_str $word cannot match some string like "/WORD1 balabala"

Any suggestion about this short piece of script?

There is not issues in this code snippet (grep example). Did you get any error message ? — sprabhakaran, Sep 11 '18 at 07:02
no any error message.I only got the echoed words but not any mattched sentence — user7870532, Sep 11 '18 at 07:13
Oh yes -- you should. Always check with, e.g. `file name.TXT` to determine the type of text file you are dealing with. (especially if the file was created on windows) — David C. Rankin, Sep 11 '18 at 08:11
Possible duplicate of [How to convert DOS/Windows newline (CRLF) to Unix newline (LF) in a Bash script?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2613800/how-to-convert-dos-windows-newline-crlf-to-unix-newline-lf-in-a-bash-script) — Wiktor Stribiżew, Sep 11 '18 at 08:57

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 11 '18 at 07:14

What is the "/$1" part about? Are you looking for literal slashes? And do you need the function?

$ cat > info.txt
testing 123 dog
nothing matches a catalyst
doggerel is not poetry
my cat is a maine coone

$ cat > name.txt
dog cat

With -w and gnu grep, only lines with matching whole words are listed:

$ for word in $(<name.txt); do grep -w "$word" info.txt; done
testing 123 dog
my cat is a maine coone

Without the -w flag, all lines containing a match are listed:

$ for word in $(<name.txt); do grep "$word" info.txt; done
testing 123 dog
doggerel is not poetry
nothing matches a catalyst
my cat is a maine coone

thanks! And my problem solved: i shouled use dos2unix name.txt first :) — user7870532, Sep 11 '18 at 08:07

variables can't be used in grep pattern matching

1 Answers1