tillgrep

Tillgrep is a command-line utility designed for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression. It is a fundamental tool in Unix-like operating systems, widely used for text processing and data analysis. The name "grep" is an acronym for "globally search for a regular expression and print". Tillgrep extends this functionality by offering additional features and potentially different implementations or optimizations compared to the standard grep.

The core functionality of tillgrep involves reading input from one or more files or from standard input. It then iterates through each line of the input, comparing it against a specified pattern. When a line matches the pattern, tillgrep prints that line to standard output. The patterns used are regular expressions, which allow for flexible and powerful text matching beyond simple string searches. This enables users to find complex sequences of characters, specific word boundaries, or character classes.

Tillgrep can be used in various scenarios, such as locating specific error messages in log files, extracting relevant data from configuration files, or filtering the output of other commands. Its versatility is further enhanced by a range of options that control its behavior, including case-insensitive searching, matching whole words only, inverting the match (printing lines that *do not* match), and displaying line numbers. These options allow users to refine their searches to precisely target the desired information.