NAME
look - display lines beginning with a given string SYNOPSIS look [options] string [file] DESCRIPTION The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string. As look performs a binary search, the lines in file must be sorted (where
sort(1) got the same options -d and/or -f that look is invoked with). If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of alphabetic charac‐ ters is ignored. OPTIONS
-a, alternative Use the alternative dictionary file.
-d, alphanum Use normal dictionary character set and order, i.e. only alphanumeric characters are compared. (This is on by default if no file is specified.)
-f, ignore-case Ignore the case of alphabetic characters. (This is on by default if no file is specified.)
-t, terminate character Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence of character are compared.
-h, help Display help text and exit.
-V, version Output version information and exit. The look utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1 if no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred. EXAMPLE
sort -d /etc/passwd -o /tmp/look.dict
look -t: root:foobar /tmp/look.dict FILES /usr/share/dict/words the dictionary /usr/share/dict/web2 the alternative dictionary SEE ALSO grep(1), sort(1) COMPATIBILITY The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters partici‐ pated in comparisons when the alphanum option was specified. This was incorrect, and the current man page matches the historic implementa‐ tion. HISTORY The look utility appeared in Version 7 AT&T Unix. AVAILABILITY
The look command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
util-linux June 2011 LOOK(1)