Issue
I'm trying to find lines with words not preceded by double colons (::). Example
void myClass::doMything() // I don't want this line
myObj->doMyThing() // I want this line
My goal is to get the lines where some methods are used, but not where the methods are defined.
I try with this command :
grep --color=always -rwna "methodName" --include=*.cpp | grep -v "::methodName"
but it doesn't work : it keeps extracting also lines containing ::methodName
I've also tried by writing
grep --color=always -rwna "methodName" --include=*.cpp | grep -v "\:\:methodName"
egrep --color=always -rwna "methodName" --include=*.cpp | egrep -v "\:\:methodName"
but neither works.
What should I do ?
Solution
I've finally managed to make it work.
I've tried linux_beginner's suggestion:
grep -Eno '(::)?myMethodName' path/to/one/of/the/files.cpp | grep -v '::myMethodName'
with a single file and this works. (I found I prefer not using the o option, because I also want to se how it's used).
In this search I need anyway to use multiple files. So I've also tried to include more files :
grep -Eno '(::)?myMethodName' --include=*.cpp | grep -v '::myMethodName'
but in this case it remains like stuck in the search (maybe it triggers some slow scripting ? perl or python ?).
I've checked RavinderSingh13's command. Taken in a single instance, it can capture the lines with double colon(and only them, correctly), both on single file or in multiple files :
grep -rna '::myMethodName' path/to/one/of/the/file.cpp
grep -rna '::myMethodName' --include=*.cpp
but there must not be the -w switch, so the following:
grep -rna '::myMethodName' path/to/one/of/the/file.cpp
grep -rna '::myMethodName' --include=*.cpp
don't get any result. RavinderSingh13's suggestion put inside the pipelining doesn't manage to filter out the double colon lines (my original goal), either with single or multiple files :
grep -rwna 'myMethodName' path/to/one/of/the/files.cpp | grep -v '::[[:alpha:]]+'
-> extracts both myMethodName and ::myMethodName from the chosen file
grep -rwna 'myMethodName' --include=*.cpp | grep -v '::[[:alpha:]]+'
-> extracts both myMethodName and ::myMethodName from all the cpp files
Now, how I could solve: usually, when I concatenate grep commands I also add to the first of them the switch --color=always, which preserves results coloring also across the piping of multiple commands. But that... was the culprit !
i.e., doing
grep --color=always -rwna 'myMethodName' --include=*.cpp | grep -v '::myMethodName'
preserves the color in results, but sadly fails to exclude lines containing ::myMethodName, while
grep -rwna 'myMethodName' --include=*.cpp | grep -v '::myMethodName'
gives colorless but correct results (manages to filter out double column lines).
The distribution on which I've experimented these codes and behaviours is Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS. Grep version : grep (GNU grep) 3.4
Thanks everybody for the interest.
Answered By - crillion Answer Checked By - Mildred Charles (WPSolving Admin)