Joseph L. Casale wrote: >> Yes whitespace always. > > [root at dev ~]# echo " CP_" | egrep -e "\ CP_" > CP_ > [root at dev ~]# echo "CPLAT::CP_" | egrep -e "\ CP_" > [root at dev ~]# > >> So what I am doing is a massive replace. So this grep will allow me to see how many instances still need to be replaced. >> >> I am replacing CP_ with CPLAT::CP_ and when i execute the grep I want to ignore CPLAT:CP_ so I just see the CP_ that still need to be done. > > Typo in that? You want to ignore " CPLAT::CP_" right? Depends on what > tool you use and what std it follows, I don't even think you need to > escape the "space". White space could be a tab. '[[:space:]]CP_' should work, but why not use sed and be done with it. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com