https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article105/grep-o en a blog about Debian and self-hosting Mon, 12 Aug 2013 17:52:00 +0000 PluXml https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article105/grep-o/#c1376329977-1 https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article105/grep-o/#c1376329977-1 You can use : sed -n 's/.*\(expr\).*/\1/p' Mon, 12 Aug 2013 17:52:00 +0000 barmic https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article105/grep-o/#c1376308954-1 https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article105/grep-o/#c1376308954-1 cat <<'EOF' > printmatching.awk #!/usr/bin/awk -f { if(match($0, expr)) print substr($0, RSTART, RLENGTH) } EOF chmod +x printmatching.awk call as e.g., printmatching.awk -v expr="a.*a" printmatching.awk I believe this is POSIX-compatible use of awk. Mon, 12 Aug 2013 12:02:00 +0000 Jeff Epler