Strings
Strings are any sequence of characters, including the special symbols `^' for beginning of line and `$' for end of line. The following special characters ( `$', `^', `*', `[', `^', `|', `(', `)', `!', and `\' ) as well as the following meta characters special to glimpse (and agrep): `;', `,', `#', `<', `>', `-', and `.', should be preceded by `\' if they are to be matched as regular characters. For example, \^abc\ corresponds to the string ^abc\, whereas ^abc corresponds to the string abc at the beginning of a line.

Classes of characters
a list of characters inside [] (in order) corresponds to any character from the list. For example, [a-ho-z] is any character between a and h or between o and z. The symbol `^' inside [] complements the list. For example, [^i-n] denote any character in the character set except character `i' to `n'. The symbol `^' thus has two meanings, but this is consistent with egrep. The symbol `.' (don't care) stands for any symbol (except for the newline symbol).

Boolean operations
Glimpse supports an `AND' operation denoted by the symbol `;' an `OR' operation denoted by the symbol `,', or any combination. For example, glimpse `pizza;cheeseburger' will output all lines containing both patterns. {political,computer};science will match `political science' or `science of computers'.

Wild cards
The symbol `#' is used to denote a sequence of any number (including 0) of arbitrary characters Use your browser's BACK button to return to your search form.