1LOOK(1)                   BSD General Commands Manual                  LOOK(1)
2

NAME

4     look — display lines beginning with a given string
5

SYNOPSIS

7     look [-dfa] [-t termchar] string [file]
8

DESCRIPTION

10     The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string as a
11     prefix.  As look performs a binary search, the lines in file must be
12     sorted (where sort(1) got the same options -d and/or -f that look is
13     invoked with).
14
15     If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used, only
16     alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of alphabetic charac‐
17     ters is ignored.
18
19     Options:
20
21     -d      Dictionary character set and order, i.e. only alphanumeric char‐
22             acters are compared.
23
24     -f      Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.
25
26     -a      Use the alternate dictionary /usr/share/dict/web2
27
28     -t      Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters
29             in string up to and including the first occurrence of termchar
30             are compared.
31
32     The look utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1
33     if no lines were found, and >1 if an error occurred.
34

FILES

36     /usr/share/dict/words  the dictionary
37     /usr/share/dict/web2   the alternate dictionary
38

SEE ALSO

40     grep(1), sort(1)
41

COMPATIBILITY

43     The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters partici‐
44     pated in comparisons when the -d option was specified.  This was incor‐
45     rect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.
46

HISTORY

48     Look appeared in Version 7 AT&T Unix.
49
50BSD                              June 14, 1993                             BSD