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Regex (grep) for multi-line search needed

Asked 2010-09-15T12:56:24.053
300

I'm running a grep to find any *.sql file that has the word select followed by the word customerName followed by the word from. This select statement can span many lines and can contain tabs and newlines.

I've tried a few variations on the following:

$ grep -liIr --include="*.sql" --exclude-dir="\.svn*" --regexp="select[a-zA-Z0-
9+\n\r]*customerName[a-zA-Z0-9+\n\r]*from"

This, however, just runs forever. Can anyone help me with the correct syntax please?

regex linux cygwin grep
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I am not very good in grep. But your problem can be solved using AWK command. Just see

awk '/select/,/from/' *.sql

The above code will result from first occurence of select till first sequence of from. Now you need to verify whether returned statements are having customername or not. For this you can pipe the result. And can use awk or grep again.

answered 2010-09-15T13:22:01.510

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