Home / ubuntu / Questions / 561000
Accepted
Justin
Asked: 2014-12-14 09:45:06 +0800 CST

Using Grep to search for multiple words in a file

  • 772

I want to use grep in an If statement to search for a first-name and last-name within a text file. I can't seem to make it work on my own.

if [[ grep -E "$first|$last" Datafile.txt ]]
    then
            echo "This name already exists"
    else
            echo "This name doesn't exist yet"
    fi

Any suggestions??

bash

2 Answers

  1. more simpler way. make a new file that will contain your search key-word, one per line. 

    grep --file=<filename containing search keys> <filename to find into>
    • 2
  2. Best Answer

    You don't need [[ operator, just:

    if grep -qwE "${first}|${last}" Datafile.txt; then
  echo "This name already exists"
else
  echo "This name doesn't exist yet"
fi
    • 1