This manual page is for Mac OS X version 10.6.3

If you are running a different version of Mac OS X, view the documentation locally:

  • In Terminal, using the man(1) command

Reading manual pages

Manual pages are intended as a quick reference for people who already understand a technology.

  • For more information about the manual page format, see the manual page for manpages(5).

  • For more information about this technology, look for other documentation in the Apple Reference Library.

  • For general information about writing shell scripts, read Shell Scripting Primer.


LOOK(1)                                  BSD General Commands Manual                                 LOOK(1)

NAME
     look -- display lines beginning with a given string

SYNOPSIS
     look [-df] [-t termchar] string [file ...]

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 com-pared compared
     pared and the case of alphabetic characters is ignored.

     The following options are available:

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

     -f      Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.

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

ENVIRONMENT
     The LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE environment variables affect the execution of the look utility.  Their
     effect is described in environ(7).

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, and
     >1 if an error occurred.

COMPATIBILITY
     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.

SEE ALSO
     grep(1), sort(1)

HISTORY
     A look utility appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

BUGS
     Lines are not compared according to the current locale's collating order.  Input files must be sorted
     with LC_COLLATE set to `C'.

BSD                                             July 17, 2004                                            BSD

Reporting Problems

The way to report a problem with this manual page depends on the type of problem:

Content errors
Report errors in the content of this documentation with the feedback links below.
Bug reports
Report bugs in the functionality of the described tool or API through Bug Reporter.
Formatting problems
Report formatting mistakes in the online version of these pages with the feedback links below.

Did this document help you? Yes It's good, but... Not helpful...