NAME

       tre-agrep - print lines approximately matching a pattern

SYNOPSIS

       tre-agrep [OPTION]...  PATTERN [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

       Searches  for  approximate  matches  of  PATTERN in each FILE or standard input.   Example: `tre-agrep -2
       optimize foo.txt' outputs all lines in file `foo.txt' that match  "optimize"  within  two  errors.   E.g.
       lines which contain "optimise", "optmise", and "opitmize" all match.

OPTIONS

   Regexp selection and interpretation:
       -e PATTERN, --regexp=PATTERN
              Use PATTERN as a regular expression; useful to protect patterns beginning with -.

       -i, --ignore-case
              Ignore case distinctions (as defined by the current locale) in PATTERN and input files.

       -k, --literal
              Treat PATTERN as a literal string, that is, a fixed string with no special characters.

       -w, --word-regexp
              Force PATTERN to match only whole words.  A "whole word" is a substring which either starts at the
              beginning  or  the  record  or  is  preceded by a non-word constituent character.   Similarly, the
              substring must either end at the end of the record  or  be  followed  by  a  non-word  constituent
              character.   Word-constituent  characters are alphanumerics (as defined by the current locale) and
              the underscore character.  Note that the non-word constituent characters must surround the  match;
              they cannot be counted as errors.

   Approximate matching settings:
       -D NUM, --delete-cost=NUM
              Set cost of missing characters to NUM.

       -I NUM, --insert-cost=NUM
              Set cost of extra characters to NUM.

       -S NUM, --substitute-cost=NUM
              Set  cost  of  incorrect  characters  to  NUM.   Note that a deletion (a missing character) and an
              insertion (an extra character) together constitute a substituted character, but the cost  will  be
              the  that  of a deletion and an insertion added together.  Thus, if the const of a substitution is
              set to be larger than the sum of the costs of deletion and insertion,  direct  substitutions  will
              never be done.

       -E NUM, --max-errors=NUM
              Select records that have at most NUM errors.

       -#     Select records that have at most # errors (# is a digit between 0 and 9).

   Miscellaneous:
       -d PATTERN, --delimiter=PATTERN
              Set  the  record delimiter regular expression to PATTERN.  The text between two delimiters, before
              the first delimiter, and after the last delimiter is considered  to  be  a  record.   The  default
              record delimiter is the regexp "\n", so by default a record is a line.  PATTERN can be any regular
              expression  that  does  not  match  the empty string.  For example, using -d "^From " defines mail
              messages as records in a Mailbox format file.

       -v, --invert-match
              Select non-matching records instead of matching records.

       -V, --version
              Print version information and exit.

       -y, --nothing
              Does nothing.  This options exists only for compatibility with the non-free agrep program.

       --help Display a brief help message and exit.

   Output control:
       -B, --best-match
              Only output the best matching records, that is,  the  records  with  the  lowest  cost.   This  is
              currently  implemented  by  making two passes over the input files and cannot be used when reading
              from standard input.

       --color, --colour
              Highlight the matching strings in the output with a color marker.  The color string is taken  from
              the GREP_COLOR environment variable.  The default color is red.

       -c, --count
              Only print a count of matching records per each input file, suppressing normal output.

       -h, --no-filename
              Suppress the prefixing filename on output when multiple files are searched.

       -H, --with-filename
              Prefix each output record with the name of the input file where the record was read from.

       -l, --files-with-matches
              Only  print  the  name  of  each  input file which contains at least one match, suppressing normal
              output.  The scanning for each file will stop on the first match.

       -n, --record-number
              Prefix each output record with its sequence number in the input file.  The  number  of  the  first
              record is 1.

       -q, --quiet, --silent
              Do  not  write  anything to standard output.  Exit immediately with zero exit status if a match is
              found.

       -s, --show-cost
              Print match cost with output.

       --show-position
              Prefix each output record with the start and end offset of the first match within the record.  The
              offset of the first character of the record is 0.  The end position is given as the offset of  the
              first character after the match.

       -M, --delimiter-after
              By default, the record delimiter is the newline character and is output after the matching record.
              If -d is used, the record delimiter will be output before the matching record.  This option causes
              the delimiter to be output after the matching record.

       With  no  FILE, or when FILE is -, reads standard input.  If less than two FILEs are given -h is assumed,
       otherwise -H is the default.

DIAGNOSTICS

       Exit status is 0 if a match is found, 1 for no match, and 2 if there were errors.  If -E  or  -#  is  not
       specified, only exact matches are selected.

       PATTERN is a POSIX extended regular expression (ERE) with the TRE extensions.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to the TRE mailing list <tre-general@lists.laurikari.net>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2002-2004 Ville Laurikari.
       This  is  free  software,  and  comes  with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  You are welcome to redistribute this
       software under certain conditions; see the source for the full license text.

TRE agrep 0.8.0                                 November 21, 2004                                   tre-agrep(1)