I frequently use grep to demonstrate and explain regular expressions (regex). I use it in interactive mode with the input coming from the keyboard and the output going to the screen. So, I type some string and if grep finds a match this input string is echoed to the screen. If no match is found then this input string is not echoed to the screen. I have used this teaching method for many years.
Recently, whilst using CentOS, I discovered that grep can highlight matched strings. The CentOS machine I used was setup with grep highlighting which is how I discovered it. I was impressed as it makes it clear exactly which text is matched.
My Mac OSX does not have grep highlighting with the default settings. I therefore decided to configure my OSX system so it does highlight grep matches as it is so useful. Rather than having to repeatedly type the relevant grep otions on the command line, I put them into my .bash_profile, as follows.
export GREP_COLOR='1;34' # 1=bold; 34=blue
I now give a grep terminal session extract which illustrates non matching and matching.
안산 안양 부산 구미 제주 포항 양산
안산 안양 부산 노팅엄 구미 제주 포항 양산
안산 안양 부산 노팅엄 구미 제주 포항 양산
The text used in this terminal session is Korean Hangeul. Each word is a Korean city, apart from 노팅엄 which is Nottingham, a city in England. The Korean cities are: 안산 Ansan, 안양 Anyang, 부산 Busan, 구미 Gumi, 제주 Jeju, 포항 Pohang and 양산 Yangsan.
Note: I use egrep as it is short form for grep -E which enables extended regular expressions.
Environment: OSX Sierra v10.12.1
