look(1)

NAME

look — display lines beginning with a given string

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string as a prefix. As look performs a binary search, the lines in file must be sorted.

If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used. Only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of alphabetic characters is ignored.

The options are as follows:

-d

Dictionary character set and order, i.e., only alphanumeric characters are compared.

-f

Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.

-t termchar

Specify a string termination character, i.e., only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence of termchar are compared.

FILES

/usr/share/dict/words

the dictionary

EXIT STATUS

The look utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1 if no lines were found, or >1 if an error occurred.

SEE ALSO

grep(1), sort(1)

STANDARDS

The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated in comparisons when the -d option was specified. This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.

HISTORY

The look command appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.