>> On Fri 27 Feb 2026 at 04:50:42 (-0500), Chris Green wrote:
> I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
> text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
> them.
"ugrep" will do what you want. If you want to stick with regular grep,
you can do an "OR" match with a one-liner (not what you asked) but a script
or function would be needed for "AND".
Test files
me% ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 77 28-Feb-2026 17:43:21 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 143 28-Feb-2026 17:43:26 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 224 28-Feb-2026 17:43:36 c
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 90 28-Feb-2026 17:43:42 d
me% head *
==> a <==
I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite
fit grep.
==> b <==
I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just
plain text files) for entries which have two or more specified
strings in them.
==> c <==
E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words 'green',
'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for could be
Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wildcards would
suffice).
==> d <==
Is there a tool out there that can do this? Include the word
'Green' to allow one match.
UGREP
me% ugrep --files --bool 'green AND water AND deep' *
c
1: E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words 'green',
2: 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for could be
me% ugrep -l --files --bool 'green AND water AND deep' *
c
OR match
me% grep -Eil 'green|water|deep' *
c
d
AND match
me% grep -li green * | xargs grep -li water | xargs grep -li deep
c
--
Karl Vogel I don't speak for anyone but myself
Congratulations on your promotion. Before you go, would you like to take
this knife out of my back? You'll probably need it again.
--rejected Hallmark Cards
