Get line number while using grep

grep -n SEARCHTERM file1 file2 ...

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Line numbers are printed with grep -n:

grep -n pattern file.txt

To get only the line number (without the matching line), one may use cut:

grep -n pattern file.txt | cut -d : -f 1

Lines not containing a pattern are printed with grep -v:

grep -v pattern file.txt

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If you want only the line number do this:

grep -n Pattern file.ext | gawk '{print $1}' FS=":"

Example:

$ grep -n 9780545460262 EXT20130410.txt | gawk '{print $1}' FS=":" 
48793
52285
54023

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grep -A20 -B20 pattern file.txt

Search pattern and show 20 lines after and before pattern

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grep -nr "search string" directory

This gives you the line with the line number.

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In order to display the results with the line numbers, you might try this

grep -nr "word to search for" /path/to/file/file 

The result should be something like this:

linenumber: other data "word to search for" other data

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When working with vim you can place

function grepn() {
    grep -n $@ /dev/null | awk -F $':' '{t = $1; $1 = $2; $2 = t; print; }' OFS=$':' | sed 's/^/vim +/' | sed '/:/s// /' | sed '/:/s// : /'
}

in your .bashrc and then

grepn SEARCHTERM file1 file2 ...

results in

vim +123 file1 : xxxxxxSEARCHTERMxxxxxxxxxx
vim +234 file2 : xxxxxxSEARCHTERMxxxxxxxxxx

Now, you can open vim on the correspondending line (for example line 123) by simply copying vim +123 file1 to your shell.

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