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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




 NAME
      sgrep - search a file for a structured pattern

 SYNOPSIS
      sgrep [-aCcDdhilNnPqSsTtV] [-O filename] [-o "format"] [-p
      preprocessor] [-e] expression [filename  ...]

      sgrep [-aCcDdhilNnPqSsTtV] [-O filename] [-o "format"] [ -p
      preprocessor] -f filename [-e  expression] [filename ...]

      sgrep -h

 DESCRIPTION
      sgrep (structured grep) is a tool for searching text files and
      filtering text streams using structural criteria.  The data model of
      sgrep is based on regions, which are non-empty substrings of text.
      Regions are typically occurrences of constant strings or meaningful
      text elements, which are recognizable through some delimiting strings.
      Regions can be arbitrarily long, arbitrarily overlapping, and
      arbitrarily nested.

      sgrep uses patterns called region expressions to express which regions
      of the input text are output to standard output. The selection of
      regions is based on mutual containment and ordering conditions of the
      regions, expressed by the region expression.

      Region expressions are read by default first from file $HOME/.sgreprc,
      or if it doesn't exist, from file /usr/lib/sgreprc, and then from the
      command line. Different behavior can be specified through command line
      options.

      Input files are processed one by one (i.e., regions cannot extend over
      file boundaries), except if the -S flag is given, in which case sgrep
      takes the concatenation of the input files as its input text. If no
      input files are  given, sgrep reads the standard input.  Standard
      input can also be specified as an input file by giving hyphen '-' as a
      file name.

      The selected regions are output in increasing order of their start
      positions. If several output regions overlap, a minimal region that
      covers them all is output, by default, instead of outputting each of
      them separately.

 OPTIONS
      -a   Act as a filter: display the maching regions, possibly formatted
           according to the output format, interleaved with the rest of the
           text.  (See the description of option -o below.)


      -C   Display copyright notice.




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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




      -c   Display only the count of the regions that match the expression.

      -D   Display verbose progress output. NOTE: This is used for debugging
           purposes only and may not function in future versions of sgrep.

      -d   Display each matching region once, even if the regions overlap or
           nest.

      -e expression
           Search the input text for occurrences of expression.

      -f file
           Read the region expression from the named file. Filename - refers
           to stdin.

      -h   Display a short help.

      -i   Ignore case distinctions in phrases.

      -l   Long output format: precede each output region by a line which
           indicates the ordinal number of the region, the name of the file
           where the region starts, the length of the region in bytes, the
           start and end positions of the region within the entire input
           text, the start position of the region within the file containing
           the start, and the end position of the region within the file
           containing the end.

      -N   Do not add a newline after the last output region.

      -n   Suppress reading $HOME/.sgreprc or /usr/lib/sgreprc.

      -O file
           Read the output format from file. See the description of output
           formats below.

      -o format
           Set the output format.  The format is displayed for each output
           region with any occurrences of the following place holders
           substituted:

           %f   name of the file containing the start of the region

           %s   start position of the region

           %e   end position of the region

           %l   length of the region in bytes (i.e., %e-%s+1)

           %i   start position of the region in the file where the region
                begins




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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




           %j   end position of the region in the file where the region ends

           %r   text of the region. "%r" is the default output format.

           %n   gets the ordinal number of the region

      -P   Display the (preprocessed) region expression without executing
           it.

      -p preprocessor
           Apply preprocessor to the region expression before evaluating it.

      -S   Stream mode. With this option sgrep considers it's input files as
           a continuous stream, so that regions may extend across file
           boundaries.

               sgrep -S file_1 ... file_n


           is similar to

               cat file_1 ... file_n | sgrep


           except that the latter creates a temporary disk file of the input
           stream.  Sgrep may use much more memory when run with the -S
           option, since then it cannot release its internal region lists
           between processing each file.

      -s   Short output format (default): do not format the text of the
           output regions, and display overlapping parts of regions only
           once.

      -T   Display statistics about the execution.

      -t   Display time usage.

      -V   Display version information.

      --   No more options.

      A list of options can be given also as the value of the environment
      variable SGREPOPT.

 SYNTAX OF EXPRESSIONS
      region_expr ->   basic_expr
                     | operator_expr

      operator_expr -> region_expr ['not'] 'in' basic_expr
                     | region_expr ['not'] 'containing' basic_expr
                     | region_expr ['not'] 'equal' basic_expr



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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




                     | region_expr 'or' basic_expr
                     | region_expr 'extracting' basic_expr
                     | region_expr '..' basic_expr
                     | region_expr '_.' basic_expr
                     | region_expr '._' basic_expr
                     | region_expr '__' basic_expr
                     | region_expr 'quote' basic_expr
                     | region_expr '_quote' basic_expr
                     | region_expr 'quote_' basic_expr
                     | region_expr '_quote_' basic_expr
                     | 'concat' '(' region_expr ')'
                     | 'inner' '(' region_expr ')'
                     | 'outer' '(' region_expr ')'
                     | 'join' '(' integer ',' region_expr ')'

      basic_expr ->   phrase
                    | 'start'
                    | 'end'
                    | 'chars'
                    | constant_list
                    | '(' region_expr ')'

      phrase -> '"' char [ char ... ] '"'

      constant_list -> '[' ']' | '[' regions ']'

      regions ->   region
                 | region regions

      region -> '(' integer ',' integer ')'


      Note that region expressions are left-associative. This means, for
      example, that an expression

           '"<a>".."</a>" or "</b>"'


      evaluates to the regions starting with "<a>" and ending with "</a>",
      or comprising only the string "</b>".  In order to obtain the regions
      that begin with "<a>" and end with either "</a>" or "</b>", one should
      indicate the proper order of evaluation using parentheses:

           "<a>".. ("</a>" or "</b>")


      Expressions can also contain comments, which start with '#' and extend
      to the end of the line. However, a '#'-sign in a phrase does not begin
      a comment.





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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




 SEMANTICS OF EXPRESSIONS
      The value of an expression is a set of regions of input text that
      satisfy the expression.

      Value v(basic_expr) of a basic expression:

      v(phrase):=
           the set of regions of input text whose text equals the text of
           the phrase.

      v('start'):=
           a set consisting of single-character regions for the first
           position of each input file. If the -S option is given, the value
           is a set containing a single region that comprises the first
           character in the input stream.

      v('end'):=
           a set consisting of single-character regions for the last
           position of each input file. If the -S option is given, the value
           is a set containing a single region that comprises the last
           character in the input stream.

      v('chars'):=
           a set consisting of all single-character regions.

      v([ ]):=
           an empty set.

      v([(s_1,e_1) (s_1,e_2) ... (s_n,e_n)]):=
           a set consisting of regions r_i for each i = 1,...,n, where the
           start position of region r_i is s_i and its end position is e_i.
           The positions have to be nonnegative integers, and the regions
           have to be given in increasing order of their start positions;
           regions with a common start positions have to be given in
           increasing order of their end positions. The positions are
           counted from the first character of each input file, unless the
           -S option is given, in which case the positions are counted
           starting from the beginning of the input stream. The number of
           the first position in a file or a stream is zero.

      v('('region_expr')'):= v(region_expr).

      Value v(operator_expr) of operator expressions:

      v(region_expr 'in' basic_expr):=
           the set of the regions in v(region_expr) that are contained in
           some region in v(basic_expr).  A region x is contained in another
           region y if and only if the start position of x is greater than
           the start position of y and the end position of x is not greater
           than the end position of y, or the  end position of x is smaller
           than the end position of y and the start position of x is not



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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




           smaller than the start position of y.

      v(region_expr 'not' 'in' basic_expr):=
           the set of the regions in v(region_expr) that are not contained
           in any region in v(basic_expr).

      v(region_expr 'containing' basic_expr):=
           the set of the regions in v(region_expr) that contain some region
           in v(basic_expr).

      v(region_expr 'not' 'containing' basic_expr):=
           the set of the regions in v(region_expr) that do not contain any
           region in v(basic_expr).

      v(region_expr 'equal' basic_expr):=
           The set of regions, which occur in both v(region_expr) and
           v(basic_expr).

      v(region_expr 'not equal' basic_expr):=
           The set of regions, which occur in v(region_expr) but do not
           occur in v(basic_expr).

      v(region_expr 'or' basic_expr):=
           the set of the regions that appear in v(region_expr) or in
           v(basic_expr) or in both.

      v(region_expr 'extracting' basic_expr):=
           the set of the non-empty regions that are formed of the regions
           in v(region_expr) by extracting an overlap with any region in
           v(basic_expr).  For example, the value of


               '[(1,4) (3,6) (7,9)] extracting [(2,5) (4,7)]'


           consists of the regions (1,1) and (8,9).

      v(region_expr '..' basic_expr):
           The value of this expression consists of the regions that can be
           formed by pairing regions from v(region_expr) with regions from
           v(basic_expr).  The pairing is defined as a generalization of the
           way how nested parentheses are paired together "from inside out".
           For this we need to be able to compare the order of regions,
           which may be overlapping and nested. This ordering is defined as
           follows.

           Let x and y be two regions. We say that region x precedes region
           y if the end position of x is smaller than the start position of
           y.  We say that region x is later than region y if the end
           position of x is greater than the end position of y, or if they
           end at the same position and the start of x is greater than the



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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




           start of y. Region x is earlier than region y if the start
           position of x is smaller than the start position of y, or if they
           start at the same position and the end position of x is less than
           the end position of y.  Now a region x from v(region_expr) and a
           region y from v(basic_expr) are paired in expression
           v(region_expr '..' basic_expr) if and only if

           1.   x precedes y,

           2.   x is not paired with any region  from v(basic_expr) which is
                earlier than y, and

           3.   y is not paired with any region from v(region_expr) which is
                later than x.

      The pairing of regions x and y forms a region that extends from the
      start position of x to the end position of y.

      v(region_expr '._' basic_expr):
           The pairing of the regions from v(region_expr) and the regions
           from v(basic_expr) is defined similarly to v(region_expr '..'
           basic_expr) above, except that the pairing of regions x and y now
           forms a region which extends from the start position of x to the
           position immediately preceding the start of y.

      v(region_expr '_.' basic_expr):=
           The pairing of the regions from v(region_expr) and the regions
           from v(basic_expr) is defined similarly to v(region_expr '..'
           basic_expr) above, except that the pairing of regions x and y now
           forms a region which extends from the position immediately
           following the end position of x to the end position of y.

      v(region_expr '__' basic_expr):=
           The pairing of the regions from v(region_expr) and the regions
           from v(basic_expr) is defined similarly to v(region_expr '..'
           basic_expr) above, except that now the pairing of regions x and y
           forms a region which extends from the text position immediately
           following the end of x to the text position immediately preceding
           the start of y.  Possibly resulting empty regions are excluded
           from the result.


      v(region_expr 'quote' basic_expr):
           The value of this expression consists of the regions that extend
           from the start position of a "left-quote region" in
           v(region_expr) to the end position of a corresponding "right-
           quote region" in v(basic_expr).  The regions in the result are
           non-nesting and non-overlapping.  The left-quote regions and the
           right-quote regions are defined as follows:





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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




           +    The earliest region (see above) in v(region_expr) is a
                possible left-quote region.

           +    For each possible left-quote region x, the earliest region
                in v(basic_expr) preceeded by x is its right-quote region.

           +    For each  right-quote region y in v(basic_expr), the
                earliest region in v(region_expr) preceeded by y is a
                possible left-quote region.

      The below example query finds C-style non-nesting comments:

              "/*" quote "*/"


      The below example query finds strings between quotation marks:

              "\"" quote "\""


      (Notice the difference to expression "\"" .. "\"", which would
      evaluate to any substring of input text that starts with a quotation
      mark and ends with the next quotation mark.)

      The variants _quote, quote_ and _quote_ are analogical to the
      operators _., ._ and __, in the sense that the "quote regions"
      originating from the expression on the side of the underscore _ are
      excluded from the result regions.  (In the case of _quote_ any
      possibly resulting empty regions are excluded from the result.)


      v('concat' '(' region_expr ')' ):=
           the set of the longest regions of input text that are covered by
           the regions in v(region_expr).

      v('inner' '(' region_expr ')' ):=
           the set of regions in v(region_expr) that do not contain any
           other region in v(region_expr).  Note that for any region
           expression A, the expression inner(A) is equivalent to (A not
           containing A).

      v('outer' '(' region_expr ')' ):=
           the set of regions in v(region_expr) that are not contained in
           any other region in v(region_expr).  Note that for any region
           expression A, the expression outer(A) is equivalent to (A not in
           A).

      v('join' '(' n ',' region_expr ')' ):
           The value of this expression is formed by processing the regions
           of v(region_expr) in increasing order of their start positions
           (and in increasing order of end positions for regions with a



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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




           common start). Each region r produces a result region beginning
           at the start of r and extending to the end of the (n-1)th region
           after r.  The operation is useful only with non-nesting regions.
           Especially, when applied to 'chars', it can be used to express
           nearness conditions. For example,


               '"/*" quote "*/" in join(10,chars)'


           selects comments  "/*  ... */" which are at most 10 characters
           long.

 EXAMPLES OF REGION EXPRESSIONS
      Count the number of occurrences of string "sort" in file eval.c:

          sgrep -c '"sort"' eval.c


      Show all blocks delimited by braces in file eval.c:

          sgrep '"{" .. "}"' eval.c


      Show the outermost blocks that contain "sort" or "nest":

          sgrep 'outer("{" .. "}" containing ("sort" or "nest"))'\
                  eval.c


      Show all lines containing "sort" but no "nest" in files with an
      extension .c, preceded by the name of the file:

          sgrep -o "%f:%r" '"\n" _. "\n" containing "sort" \
                            not containing "nest"' *.c


      (Notice that this query would omit the first line, since it has no
      preceding new-line character '\n',  and also the last one, if not
      terminated by a new-line. For a correct way to express text lines, see
      the definition of the LINE macro below.)

      Show the beginning of conditional statements, consisting of "if"
      followed by a condition in parentheses, in files *.c. The query has to
      disregard "if"s appearing within comments "/* ... */" or on compiler
      control lines beginning with '#':

          sgrep '"if" not in ("/*" quote "*/" or ("\n#" .. "\n"))  \
                              .. ("(" ..  ")")' *.c





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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




      Show the if-statements containing string "access" in their condition
      part appearing in the main function of the program in source files
      *.c:

          sgrep '"if" not in ("/*" quote "*/" or ("\n#" .. "\n"))  \
                   .. ("(" ..  ")") containing "access" \
                                    in ("main(" .. ("{" .. "}")) \
                  .. ("{" .. "}" or ";")'  *.c


      We see that complicated conditions can become rather illegible. The
      use of carefully designed macros can make expressing queries much
      easier. For example, one could give the below m4 macro processor
      definitions in a file, say, c.macros:

          define(BLOCK,( "{" .. "}" ))
          define(COMMENT,( "/*" quote "*/" ))
          changecom(%)
          define(CTRLINE,( "#" in start or "\n#"
                            _. ("\n" or end) ))
          define(IF_COND,( "if" not in (COMMENT or CTRLINE)
                            .. ("(" .. ")")))


      Then the above query could be written more intuitively as

          sgrep -p m4 -f c.macros -e 'IF_COND containing "access"\
                 in ( "main(" ..  BLOCK ) .. (BLOCK or  ";")' *.c


 OPTIMIZATION
      sgrep performs common subexpression elimination on the query
      expression, so that recurring sub-expressions are evaluated only once.
      For example, in expression

          '(" " or "\n" or "\t") .. (" " or "\n" or "\t")'


      the sub-expression

          '(" " or "\n" or "\t")'


      is evaluated only one.

 DIAGNOSTICS
      Exit status is 0 if any matching regions are found, 1 if none, 2  for
      syntax  errors  or  inaccessible files (even if matching regions were
      found).





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 SGREP(1)                                                           SGREP(1)




 ENVIRONMENT
      One's own default options for sgrep can be given as a value of the
      environment variable SGREPOPT.  For example, executing

          setenv  SGREPOPT  '-p m4 -o %r\n'


      makes sgrep to apply m4 preprocessor to the expression and display
      each output region as such followed by a line feed.

 FILES
      Sgrep tries to read the contents of the files $HOME/.sgreprc and
      /usr/lib/sgreprc.  Generally useful macro definitions may be placed in
      these files.  Using m4 (or some other) macro processor, for example
      the following definitions could go in one of these files:

          define(BLANK,( " " or "\t" or "\n"))
          define(LEND,( "\n" or end ))
          define(LINE,( start .. LEND or ("\n" _. LEND) ))
          define(NUMERAL,( "1" or "2" or "3" or "4" or "5" or
                           "6" or "7" or "8" or "9" or "0" ))


 FUTURE EXTENSIONS
      +    Regular expressions (The most important missing feature)

      +    Built-in macro preprocessor

      +    More operations

      +    Indexing for large static texts

 AUTHORS
      Jani Jaakkola and Pekka Kilpelainen, University of Helsinki,
      Department of Computer Science, 1995.

 BUGS
      Sgrep may use lots of memory, when evaluating complex queries on big
      files. When sgrep reads its input text from a pipe, it copies it to a
      temporary file.  sgrep does not have regular expressions in search
      patters.

 SEE ALSO
      awk(1), ed(1),  grep(1)

      sgrep home page at http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/~jjaakkol/sgrep.html





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