grep awk sed Cheat Sheet — Text Processing Commands Free

Interactive reference for grep, awk, and sed with practical examples. Search, filter, transform text files in Linux. Free cheat sheet for developers and sysadmins.

Basic Usage

grep 'pattern' file.txt

Search for pattern in file

grep 'word' file1.txt file2.txt

Search in multiple files

grep -i 'pattern' file.txt

Case-insensitive search

grep -v 'pattern' file.txt

Invert match (show non-matching lines)

grep -c 'pattern' file.txt

Count matching lines

grep -n 'pattern' file.txt

Show line numbers with matches

grep -l 'pattern' *.txt

List filenames with matches only

grep -L 'pattern' *.txt

List filenames WITHOUT matches

grep -m 5 'pattern' file.txt

Stop after 5 matches

Flags & Options

grep -r 'pattern' /var/log/

Recursive search in directory

grep -rn 'pattern' /var/log/

Recursive + show line numbers

grep -rl 'pattern' /var/log/

Recursive, list files only

grep -A 3 'pattern' file.txt

Show 3 lines after match

grep -B 3 'pattern' file.txt

Show 3 lines before match

grep -C 3 'pattern' file.txt

Show 3 lines before AND after

grep -w 'word' file.txt

Match whole word only

grep -x 'exact line' file.txt

Match entire line exactly

grep -F 'literal.string' file.txt

Treat pattern as fixed string (no regex)

grep -o 'pattern' file.txt

Print only matched part (not full line)

grep --include='*.log' -r 'error' /var

Grep only specific file types

grep -e 'pat1' -e 'pat2' file.txt

Multiple patterns (OR)

Regex Patterns

grep '^start' file.txt

Lines starting with 'start'

grep 'end$' file.txt

Lines ending with 'end'

grep '^$' file.txt

Empty lines

grep -E '(cat|dog)' file.txt

Extended regex: match cat or dog

grep -E '[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}' file.txt

Match phone number pattern

grep -E '^[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@' file.txt

Lines with email-like pattern

grep -P '\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}' file.txt

Perl regex: match date YYYY-MM-DD

grep '.' file.txt

Lines with any character (non-empty)

grep -E 'colou?r' file.txt

Match 'color' or 'colour' (optional u)

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I use grep to search recursively?

grep -r 'pattern' /path/to/dir — searches all files recursively. Add -l to show only filenames, -n for line numbers, -i for case-insensitive.

Is grep/awk/sed Cheat Sheet free?

Yes, this cheat sheet on ToolPix is 100% free with no signup or installation required.

Is my data safe?

This is a static reference tool. No data is entered or transmitted.

How do I replace text in a file with sed?

sed -i 's/old/new/g' file.txt — replaces all occurrences in-place. Remove -i to preview output first. Use s/old/new/ (no g) to replace only the first match per line.

How do I print the 3rd column with awk?

awk '{print $3}' file.txt — prints the 3rd whitespace-delimited field. Use -F: to change delimiter: awk -F: '{print $3}' /etc/passwd

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