On Mon, Jun 20, 2022, at 3:00 AM, m...@datameer.com wrote: > "Greg Reagle" <l...@speedpost.net> wrote: >> ls | awk '/er.*/ {match($0, /er.*/); print $0; print >> NR":"RSTART"-"RSTART+RLENGTH}' >> debfoster-a-notes.txt >> 3:8-22 >> vdirsyncer >> 21:9-11 >> >> So there is a match on line 3 columns 8-22 and line 21 columns 9-11. >> Exactly what I want. I am curious though, is there a "better" way? A >> version of grep that has a column number option? Are just a simpler way of >> achieving this goal? > > I'm using ag[0]. Does that fit your needs? > > [0] https://geoff.greer.fm/ag/
I tried the related program ack because it was easy for me to install (I don't see a Debian stable package for ag), and it does produce a starting column number. Thank you for the suggestion! ls | ack -H --column 'er.*' - 3:8:debfoster-a-notes.txt 20:9:vdirsyncer