June 14, 1993 LOOK 1

### NAME

look - display lines beginning with a given string

### SYNOPSIS

look [-df] [-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.

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.

-f
  Ignore the case of alphabetic characters.

-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

### 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 specified. This was incorrect and the current man page matches the historic implementation.

### HISTORY

look appeared in Version 7 `AT&T UNIX`.