[NTLUG:Discuss] in a world where grep doesn't have the -m (match) option..

[Steve Baker]

Richard wrote:
> Chris Cox wrote:
>   
>> Richard wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> ..how would one go about stopping a grep after the first match? <snippage>
>>>       
>> <snippage>
>>
>> grep 'whatever' file | head -1
>> (that's a minus one)
>>   
>>     
> AH YES!!  That's brilliant!   It would cause the search to continue..but 
> WOULD get the job done.  Thanks Chris!
>   
As soon as 'head' has read enough input to satisfy your demand to 
display one line, it'll exit.  That causes a 'broken' link on the output 
of 'grep' which will crap out and die as a result.  So the only wasted 
time is the time grep spends searching onwards while head displays your 
line of data.

Of course you could also grab the sourcecode for GNU grep and install it 
on whatever pathetic machine you're using that doesn't have '-m'...but 
that's another story!