Pattern Matching Tools

The preceding section concentrated on two of the most powerful and commonly used text file editors on the Linux/UNIX platform. In this section, we are going to discuss the concepts of pattern matching and some of the most commonly used tools/commands that use pattern matching techniques and usually work in the noninteractive mode with very little user intervention. Some user interaction may be required to prepare the tool to do the job, but certainly not to the extent of screen editors such as vi and Emacs, which are completely interactive. Also, the purpose of these tools is different from that of the screen editors. Although the screen editors are used to create text files (which is the basic requirement in developing any application), these tools work with the files in the noninteractive mode. We also use the screen editors to create some configuration (or setup) files or script files required to use these tools.