LOOK(1)                                            BSD General Commands Manual                                           LOOK(1)

NAME
     look -- display lines beginning with a given string

SYNOPSIS
     look [-dfa] [-t termchar] string [file]

DESCRIPTION
     The look utility displays any lines in file which contain string as a prefix.  As look performs a binary search, the lines
     in file must be sorted (where sort(1) got the same options -d and/or -f that look is invoked with).

     If file is not specified, the file /usr/share/dict/words is used, only alphanumeric characters are compared and the case of
     alphabetic characters is ignored.

     Options:

     -d      Dictionary character set and order, i.e. only alphanumeric characters are compared. (On by default if no file spec-
             ified).

     -f      Ignore the case of alphabetic characters. (On by default if no file specified).

     -a      Use the alternate dictionary /usr/share/dict/web2

     -t      Specify a string termination character, i.e. only the characters in string up to and including the first occurrence
             of termchar are compared.

     The look utility exits 0 if one or more lines were found and displayed, 1 if no lines were found, and >1 if an error
     occurred.

FILES
     /usr/share/dict/words  the dictionary
     /usr/share/dict/web2   the alternate dictionary

SEE ALSO
     grep(1), sort(1)

COMPATIBILITY
     The original manual page stated that tabs and blank characters participated in comparisons when the -d option was speci-
     fied.  This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.

HISTORY
     Look appeared in Version 7 AT&T Unix.

AVAILABILITY
     The look command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-
     linux-ng/.

BSD                                                       June 14, 1993                                                      BSD