LOOK(1) |
General Commands Manual |
LOOK(1) |
NAME
look — display lines beginning with a given string
SYNOPSIS
look |
[-df] [-t termchar] string [file] |
DESCRIPTION
The
look utility displays any lines in
file which contain
string as a prefix. As
look performs a binary search, the lines in
file must be sorted.
If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of alphabetic characters is ignored.
Options:
-
-d
-
Dictionary character set and order, i.e. only alphanumeric characters are compared.
-
-f
-
Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.
-
-t
-
Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence of termchar are compared.
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.
FILES
-
/usr/share/dict/words
-
the dictionary
COMPATIBILITY
The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated in comparisons when the -d option was specified. This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.
HISTORY
look appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.