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fivre

Member

Registered: 2007-04-17

Posts: 97

grep returns Binary file (standard input) matches

I'm trying to grep an old irc log by "cat ~/irclogs/old/#ocremix.log | grep '+'" but this returns 'Binary file (standard input) matches' instead of grepping it. I can't think why since the cat output itself is normal. The only thing that sets them apart is that they were created by a Windows application so I assume there's some encoding difference. Is there any way to fix this?

toofishes

Developer

From: Chicago, IL

Registered: 2006-06-06

Posts: 602

Website

Re: grep returns Binary file (standard input) matches

The grep -a, --text option may be of use to you. This will force grep to actually print the contents of the file.

If you are looking to fix the actual file, I would say open it up in an editor and resave it and see what that does.

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: grep returns Binary file (standard input) matches

On a sidenote: why 'cat file | grep ...'?? Use 'grep .... file'.

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