How do I grep for lines containing either of two words, but not both?












7















I'm trying to use grep to show only lines containing either of the two words, if only one of them appears in the line, but not if they are in the same line.



So far I've tried grep pattern1 | grep pattern2 | ... but didn't get the result I expected.










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  • (1) You talk about “words” and “patterns”.  Which is it?  Ordinary words like “quick”, “brown” and “fox”, or regular expressions like [a-z][a-z0-9](,7}(.[a-z0-9]{,3})+? (2) What if one of the words / patterns appears more than once in a line (and the other one doesn’t appear)?  Is that equivalent to the word appearing once, or does it count as multiple occurrences?

    – G-Man
    12 mins ago
















7















I'm trying to use grep to show only lines containing either of the two words, if only one of them appears in the line, but not if they are in the same line.



So far I've tried grep pattern1 | grep pattern2 | ... but didn't get the result I expected.










share|improve this question









New contributor




Trasmos is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





















  • (1) You talk about “words” and “patterns”.  Which is it?  Ordinary words like “quick”, “brown” and “fox”, or regular expressions like [a-z][a-z0-9](,7}(.[a-z0-9]{,3})+? (2) What if one of the words / patterns appears more than once in a line (and the other one doesn’t appear)?  Is that equivalent to the word appearing once, or does it count as multiple occurrences?

    – G-Man
    12 mins ago














7












7








7








I'm trying to use grep to show only lines containing either of the two words, if only one of them appears in the line, but not if they are in the same line.



So far I've tried grep pattern1 | grep pattern2 | ... but didn't get the result I expected.










share|improve this question









New contributor




Trasmos is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.












I'm trying to use grep to show only lines containing either of the two words, if only one of them appears in the line, but not if they are in the same line.



So far I've tried grep pattern1 | grep pattern2 | ... but didn't get the result I expected.







grep






share|improve this question









New contributor




Trasmos is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











share|improve this question









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share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 54 mins ago









Olorin

3,2441417




3,2441417






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asked 16 hours ago









TrasmosTrasmos

361




361




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Trasmos is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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  • (1) You talk about “words” and “patterns”.  Which is it?  Ordinary words like “quick”, “brown” and “fox”, or regular expressions like [a-z][a-z0-9](,7}(.[a-z0-9]{,3})+? (2) What if one of the words / patterns appears more than once in a line (and the other one doesn’t appear)?  Is that equivalent to the word appearing once, or does it count as multiple occurrences?

    – G-Man
    12 mins ago



















  • (1) You talk about “words” and “patterns”.  Which is it?  Ordinary words like “quick”, “brown” and “fox”, or regular expressions like [a-z][a-z0-9](,7}(.[a-z0-9]{,3})+? (2) What if one of the words / patterns appears more than once in a line (and the other one doesn’t appear)?  Is that equivalent to the word appearing once, or does it count as multiple occurrences?

    – G-Man
    12 mins ago

















(1) You talk about “words” and “patterns”.  Which is it?  Ordinary words like “quick”, “brown” and “fox”, or regular expressions like [a-z][a-z0-9](,7}(.[a-z0-9]{,3})+? (2) What if one of the words / patterns appears more than once in a line (and the other one doesn’t appear)?  Is that equivalent to the word appearing once, or does it count as multiple occurrences?

– G-Man
12 mins ago





(1) You talk about “words” and “patterns”.  Which is it?  Ordinary words like “quick”, “brown” and “fox”, or regular expressions like [a-z][a-z0-9](,7}(.[a-z0-9]{,3})+? (2) What if one of the words / patterns appears more than once in a line (and the other one doesn’t appear)?  Is that equivalent to the word appearing once, or does it count as multiple occurrences?

– G-Man
12 mins ago










5 Answers
5






active

oldest

votes


















16














A tool other than grep is the way to go.



Using perl, for instance, the command would be:



perl -ne 'print if /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/'


perl -ne runs the command given over each line of stdin, which in this case prints the line if it matches /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/, or in other words matches one pattern but not the other (exclusive or).



This works for the pattern in either order, and should have better performance than multiple invocations of grep, and is less typing as well.



Or, even shorter, with awk:



awk 'xor(/pattern1/,/pattern2/)'


or for versions of awk that don't have xor:



awk '/pattern1/+/pattern2/==1`





share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

    – steeldriver
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

    – Chris
    11 hours ago











  • Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

    – Jim L.
    5 hours ago











  • @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

    – Chris
    5 hours ago








  • 2





    @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

    – wjandrea
    5 hours ago





















7














Try with egrep



egrep  'pattern1|pattern2' file | grep -v -e 'pattern1.*pattern2' -e 'pattern2.*pattern1'





share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

    – glenn jackman
    14 hours ago






  • 5





    Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

    – glenn jackman
    14 hours ago











  • That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

    – Grump
    13 hours ago











  • I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

    – glenn jackman
    11 hours ago



















5














With GNU grep, you could pass both words to grep and then remove the lines containing both the patterns.



$ cat testfile.txt
abc
def
abc def
abc 123 def
1234
5678
1234 def abc
def abc

$ grep -w -e 'abc' -e 'def' testfile.txt | grep -v -e 'abc.*def' -e 'def.*abc'
abc
def





share|improve this answer





















  • 2





    @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

    – Haxiel
    16 hours ago






  • 1





    The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

    – Chris
    15 hours ago











  • @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

    – Haxiel
    14 hours ago



















1














In Boolean terms, you're looking for A xor B, which can be written as



(A and not B)



or



(B and not A)



Given that your question doesn't mention that you are concerned with the order of the output so long as the matching lines are shown, the Boolean expansion of A xor B is pretty darn simple in grep:



$ cat << EOF > foo
> a b
> a
> b
> c a
> c b
> b a
> b c
> EOF
$ grep -w 'a' foo | grep -vw 'b'; grep -w 'b' foo | grep -vw 'a';
a
c a
b
c b
b c





share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

    – Sparhawk
    4 hours ago











  • @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

    – Jim L.
    4 hours ago













  • Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

    – Sparhawk
    4 hours ago






  • 1





    @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

    – Jim L.
    4 hours ago



















0














This can be done purely with grep, uniq, and wc.



# Patterns:
# apple
# pear

# Example line
line="a_apple_apple_pear_a"

# Grep for regex pattern, sort as unique, and count the number of lines
result=$(grep -oE 'apple|pear' <<< $line | sort -u | wc -l)

# Onle one of the words exists if the result is < 2
((result > 0)) &&
if (($result < 2)); then
echo Only one word matched
else
echo Both words matched
fi




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    5 Answers
    5






    active

    oldest

    votes








    5 Answers
    5






    active

    oldest

    votes









    active

    oldest

    votes






    active

    oldest

    votes









    16














    A tool other than grep is the way to go.



    Using perl, for instance, the command would be:



    perl -ne 'print if /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/'


    perl -ne runs the command given over each line of stdin, which in this case prints the line if it matches /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/, or in other words matches one pattern but not the other (exclusive or).



    This works for the pattern in either order, and should have better performance than multiple invocations of grep, and is less typing as well.



    Or, even shorter, with awk:



    awk 'xor(/pattern1/,/pattern2/)'


    or for versions of awk that don't have xor:



    awk '/pattern1/+/pattern2/==1`





    share|improve this answer





















    • 1





      Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

      – steeldriver
      14 hours ago






    • 1





      @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

      – Chris
      11 hours ago











    • Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

      – Jim L.
      5 hours ago











    • @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

      – Chris
      5 hours ago








    • 2





      @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

      – wjandrea
      5 hours ago


















    16














    A tool other than grep is the way to go.



    Using perl, for instance, the command would be:



    perl -ne 'print if /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/'


    perl -ne runs the command given over each line of stdin, which in this case prints the line if it matches /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/, or in other words matches one pattern but not the other (exclusive or).



    This works for the pattern in either order, and should have better performance than multiple invocations of grep, and is less typing as well.



    Or, even shorter, with awk:



    awk 'xor(/pattern1/,/pattern2/)'


    or for versions of awk that don't have xor:



    awk '/pattern1/+/pattern2/==1`





    share|improve this answer





















    • 1





      Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

      – steeldriver
      14 hours ago






    • 1





      @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

      – Chris
      11 hours ago











    • Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

      – Jim L.
      5 hours ago











    • @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

      – Chris
      5 hours ago








    • 2





      @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

      – wjandrea
      5 hours ago
















    16












    16








    16







    A tool other than grep is the way to go.



    Using perl, for instance, the command would be:



    perl -ne 'print if /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/'


    perl -ne runs the command given over each line of stdin, which in this case prints the line if it matches /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/, or in other words matches one pattern but not the other (exclusive or).



    This works for the pattern in either order, and should have better performance than multiple invocations of grep, and is less typing as well.



    Or, even shorter, with awk:



    awk 'xor(/pattern1/,/pattern2/)'


    or for versions of awk that don't have xor:



    awk '/pattern1/+/pattern2/==1`





    share|improve this answer















    A tool other than grep is the way to go.



    Using perl, for instance, the command would be:



    perl -ne 'print if /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/'


    perl -ne runs the command given over each line of stdin, which in this case prints the line if it matches /pattern1/ xor /pattern2/, or in other words matches one pattern but not the other (exclusive or).



    This works for the pattern in either order, and should have better performance than multiple invocations of grep, and is less typing as well.



    Or, even shorter, with awk:



    awk 'xor(/pattern1/,/pattern2/)'


    or for versions of awk that don't have xor:



    awk '/pattern1/+/pattern2/==1`






    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 11 hours ago

























    answered 16 hours ago









    ChrisChris

    572314




    572314








    • 1





      Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

      – steeldriver
      14 hours ago






    • 1





      @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

      – Chris
      11 hours ago











    • Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

      – Jim L.
      5 hours ago











    • @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

      – Chris
      5 hours ago








    • 2





      @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

      – wjandrea
      5 hours ago
















    • 1





      Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

      – steeldriver
      14 hours ago






    • 1





      @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

      – Chris
      11 hours ago











    • Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

      – Jim L.
      5 hours ago











    • @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

      – Chris
      5 hours ago








    • 2





      @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

      – wjandrea
      5 hours ago










    1




    1





    Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

    – steeldriver
    14 hours ago





    Nice - is the Awk xor available in GNU Awk only?

    – steeldriver
    14 hours ago




    1




    1





    @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

    – Chris
    11 hours ago





    @steeldriver I think it's GNU only, yes. Or at least it's missing on older versions. You can replace it with /pattern1/+/pattern2/==1 ir xor is missing.

    – Chris
    11 hours ago













    Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

    – Jim L.
    5 hours ago





    Just curious, how could those methods be modified to be word-senstive? The OP uses the phrase "two words".

    – Jim L.
    5 hours ago













    @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

    – Chris
    5 hours ago







    @JimL. You can use negative lookaround to make sure that the word you are searching for does not come before or after another word character (i.e. alphanumeric or underscore). In perl, if you want to match the word "peach," it would be /(?<![w])peach(?![w])/. The syntax for this varies quite a bit between perl and other regex implementations, though, and not all implementations have [w] as a pre-defined character class, so you may have to do something longer like [A-Za-z0-9_] in some implementations.

    – Chris
    5 hours ago






    2




    2





    @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

    – wjandrea
    5 hours ago







    @JimL. You could put word boundaries (b) in the patterns themselves, i.e. bwordb.

    – wjandrea
    5 hours ago















    7














    Try with egrep



    egrep  'pattern1|pattern2' file | grep -v -e 'pattern1.*pattern2' -e 'pattern2.*pattern1'





    share|improve this answer





















    • 1





      can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago






    • 5





      Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago











    • That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

      – Grump
      13 hours ago











    • I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

      – glenn jackman
      11 hours ago
















    7














    Try with egrep



    egrep  'pattern1|pattern2' file | grep -v -e 'pattern1.*pattern2' -e 'pattern2.*pattern1'





    share|improve this answer





















    • 1





      can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago






    • 5





      Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago











    • That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

      – Grump
      13 hours ago











    • I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

      – glenn jackman
      11 hours ago














    7












    7








    7







    Try with egrep



    egrep  'pattern1|pattern2' file | grep -v -e 'pattern1.*pattern2' -e 'pattern2.*pattern1'





    share|improve this answer















    Try with egrep



    egrep  'pattern1|pattern2' file | grep -v -e 'pattern1.*pattern2' -e 'pattern2.*pattern1'






    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 13 hours ago

























    answered 16 hours ago









    msp9011msp9011

    4,17544064




    4,17544064








    • 1





      can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago






    • 5





      Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago











    • That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

      – Grump
      13 hours ago











    • I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

      – glenn jackman
      11 hours ago














    • 1





      can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago






    • 5





      Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

      – glenn jackman
      14 hours ago











    • That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

      – Grump
      13 hours ago











    • I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

      – glenn jackman
      11 hours ago








    1




    1





    can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

    – glenn jackman
    14 hours ago





    can also be written as grep -e foo -e bar | grep -v -e 'foo.*bar' -e 'bar.*foo'

    – glenn jackman
    14 hours ago




    5




    5





    Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

    – glenn jackman
    14 hours ago





    Also, note from the grep man page: Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated -- prefer grep -E

    – glenn jackman
    14 hours ago













    That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

    – Grump
    13 hours ago





    That isn't in my OS @glennjackman

    – Grump
    13 hours ago













    I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

    – glenn jackman
    11 hours ago





    I'm on linux, so GNU coreutils

    – glenn jackman
    11 hours ago











    5














    With GNU grep, you could pass both words to grep and then remove the lines containing both the patterns.



    $ cat testfile.txt
    abc
    def
    abc def
    abc 123 def
    1234
    5678
    1234 def abc
    def abc

    $ grep -w -e 'abc' -e 'def' testfile.txt | grep -v -e 'abc.*def' -e 'def.*abc'
    abc
    def





    share|improve this answer





















    • 2





      @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

      – Haxiel
      16 hours ago






    • 1





      The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

      – Chris
      15 hours ago











    • @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

      – Haxiel
      14 hours ago
















    5














    With GNU grep, you could pass both words to grep and then remove the lines containing both the patterns.



    $ cat testfile.txt
    abc
    def
    abc def
    abc 123 def
    1234
    5678
    1234 def abc
    def abc

    $ grep -w -e 'abc' -e 'def' testfile.txt | grep -v -e 'abc.*def' -e 'def.*abc'
    abc
    def





    share|improve this answer





















    • 2





      @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

      – Haxiel
      16 hours ago






    • 1





      The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

      – Chris
      15 hours ago











    • @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

      – Haxiel
      14 hours ago














    5












    5








    5







    With GNU grep, you could pass both words to grep and then remove the lines containing both the patterns.



    $ cat testfile.txt
    abc
    def
    abc def
    abc 123 def
    1234
    5678
    1234 def abc
    def abc

    $ grep -w -e 'abc' -e 'def' testfile.txt | grep -v -e 'abc.*def' -e 'def.*abc'
    abc
    def





    share|improve this answer















    With GNU grep, you could pass both words to grep and then remove the lines containing both the patterns.



    $ cat testfile.txt
    abc
    def
    abc def
    abc 123 def
    1234
    5678
    1234 def abc
    def abc

    $ grep -w -e 'abc' -e 'def' testfile.txt | grep -v -e 'abc.*def' -e 'def.*abc'
    abc
    def






    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 14 hours ago

























    answered 16 hours ago









    HaxielHaxiel

    1,9451710




    1,9451710








    • 2





      @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

      – Haxiel
      16 hours ago






    • 1





      The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

      – Chris
      15 hours ago











    • @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

      – Haxiel
      14 hours ago














    • 2





      @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

      – Haxiel
      16 hours ago






    • 1





      The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

      – Chris
      15 hours ago











    • @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

      – Haxiel
      14 hours ago








    2




    2





    @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

    – Haxiel
    16 hours ago





    @msp9011 I didn't think of that possibility at first. It's fixed now, thanks!

    – Haxiel
    16 hours ago




    1




    1





    The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

    – Chris
    15 hours ago





    The ^.* and .*$ are unnecessary and harmful to performance.

    – Chris
    15 hours ago













    @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

    – Haxiel
    14 hours ago





    @Chris Thanks for the feedback, I've edited my answer.

    – Haxiel
    14 hours ago











    1














    In Boolean terms, you're looking for A xor B, which can be written as



    (A and not B)



    or



    (B and not A)



    Given that your question doesn't mention that you are concerned with the order of the output so long as the matching lines are shown, the Boolean expansion of A xor B is pretty darn simple in grep:



    $ cat << EOF > foo
    > a b
    > a
    > b
    > c a
    > c b
    > b a
    > b c
    > EOF
    $ grep -w 'a' foo | grep -vw 'b'; grep -w 'b' foo | grep -vw 'a';
    a
    c a
    b
    c b
    b c





    share|improve this answer





















    • 1





      This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago











    • @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago













    • Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago






    • 1





      @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago
















    1














    In Boolean terms, you're looking for A xor B, which can be written as



    (A and not B)



    or



    (B and not A)



    Given that your question doesn't mention that you are concerned with the order of the output so long as the matching lines are shown, the Boolean expansion of A xor B is pretty darn simple in grep:



    $ cat << EOF > foo
    > a b
    > a
    > b
    > c a
    > c b
    > b a
    > b c
    > EOF
    $ grep -w 'a' foo | grep -vw 'b'; grep -w 'b' foo | grep -vw 'a';
    a
    c a
    b
    c b
    b c





    share|improve this answer





















    • 1





      This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago











    • @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago













    • Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago






    • 1





      @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago














    1












    1








    1







    In Boolean terms, you're looking for A xor B, which can be written as



    (A and not B)



    or



    (B and not A)



    Given that your question doesn't mention that you are concerned with the order of the output so long as the matching lines are shown, the Boolean expansion of A xor B is pretty darn simple in grep:



    $ cat << EOF > foo
    > a b
    > a
    > b
    > c a
    > c b
    > b a
    > b c
    > EOF
    $ grep -w 'a' foo | grep -vw 'b'; grep -w 'b' foo | grep -vw 'a';
    a
    c a
    b
    c b
    b c





    share|improve this answer















    In Boolean terms, you're looking for A xor B, which can be written as



    (A and not B)



    or



    (B and not A)



    Given that your question doesn't mention that you are concerned with the order of the output so long as the matching lines are shown, the Boolean expansion of A xor B is pretty darn simple in grep:



    $ cat << EOF > foo
    > a b
    > a
    > b
    > c a
    > c b
    > b a
    > b c
    > EOF
    $ grep -w 'a' foo | grep -vw 'b'; grep -w 'b' foo | grep -vw 'a';
    a
    c a
    b
    c b
    b c






    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 4 hours ago

























    answered 7 hours ago









    Jim L.Jim L.

    1112




    1112








    • 1





      This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago











    • @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago













    • Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago






    • 1





      @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago














    • 1





      This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago











    • @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago













    • Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

      – Sparhawk
      4 hours ago






    • 1





      @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

      – Jim L.
      4 hours ago








    1




    1





    This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

    – Sparhawk
    4 hours ago





    This works, but it will scramble the order of the file.

    – Sparhawk
    4 hours ago













    @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

    – Jim L.
    4 hours ago







    @Sparhawk True, although "scramble" is a harsh word. ;) it lists all the 'a' matches first, in order, then all the 'b' matches next, in order. The OP didn't express any interest in maintaining the order, just show the lines. FAWK, the next step could be sort | uniq.

    – Jim L.
    4 hours ago















    Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

    – Sparhawk
    4 hours ago





    Fair call; I agree my language was inaccurate. I meant to imply that the original order would be changed.

    – Sparhawk
    4 hours ago




    1




    1





    @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

    – Jim L.
    4 hours ago





    @Sparhawk ... And I edited in your observation for full disclosure.

    – Jim L.
    4 hours ago











    0














    This can be done purely with grep, uniq, and wc.



    # Patterns:
    # apple
    # pear

    # Example line
    line="a_apple_apple_pear_a"

    # Grep for regex pattern, sort as unique, and count the number of lines
    result=$(grep -oE 'apple|pear' <<< $line | sort -u | wc -l)

    # Onle one of the words exists if the result is < 2
    ((result > 0)) &&
    if (($result < 2)); then
    echo Only one word matched
    else
    echo Both words matched
    fi




    share




























      0














      This can be done purely with grep, uniq, and wc.



      # Patterns:
      # apple
      # pear

      # Example line
      line="a_apple_apple_pear_a"

      # Grep for regex pattern, sort as unique, and count the number of lines
      result=$(grep -oE 'apple|pear' <<< $line | sort -u | wc -l)

      # Onle one of the words exists if the result is < 2
      ((result > 0)) &&
      if (($result < 2)); then
      echo Only one word matched
      else
      echo Both words matched
      fi




      share


























        0












        0








        0







        This can be done purely with grep, uniq, and wc.



        # Patterns:
        # apple
        # pear

        # Example line
        line="a_apple_apple_pear_a"

        # Grep for regex pattern, sort as unique, and count the number of lines
        result=$(grep -oE 'apple|pear' <<< $line | sort -u | wc -l)

        # Onle one of the words exists if the result is < 2
        ((result > 0)) &&
        if (($result < 2)); then
        echo Only one word matched
        else
        echo Both words matched
        fi




        share













        This can be done purely with grep, uniq, and wc.



        # Patterns:
        # apple
        # pear

        # Example line
        line="a_apple_apple_pear_a"

        # Grep for regex pattern, sort as unique, and count the number of lines
        result=$(grep -oE 'apple|pear' <<< $line | sort -u | wc -l)

        # Onle one of the words exists if the result is < 2
        ((result > 0)) &&
        if (($result < 2)); then
        echo Only one word matched
        else
        echo Both words matched
        fi





        share











        share


        share










        answered 34 secs ago









        ZhroZhro

        342413




        342413






















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