ptargrep

Search for a pattern within one or more tar archives

$ ptargrep "[search_pattern]" [path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...]

$ ptargrep --basename "[search_pattern]" [path/to/file]

$ ptargrep --ignore-case "[search_pattern]" [path/to/file]

ptargrep [options] pattern [file(s)]

-c, --count
    Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching lines for each input file. With the -v, --invert-match option (see below), count non-matching lines.

-h, --no-filename
    Suppress the prefixing of filenames on output.

-i, --ignore-case
    Ignore case distinctions in both the PATTERN and the input files.

-l, --files-with-matches
    Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which output would normally have been printed. Scanning will stop on the first match.

-n, --line-number
    Prefix each line of output with the line number within its input file.

-v, --invert-match
    Invert the sense of matching, to select non-matching lines.

-w, --word-regexp
    Select only those lines containing whole words matching the pattern. The test is that the matching substring must either be at the beginning of the line, or preceded by a non-word constituent character. Similarly, it must be either at the end of the line or followed by a non-word constituent character. Word-constituent characters are the letters, digits, and the underscore.

-H
    Print the filename for each match (default).

-q, --quiet, --silent
    Quiet; do not write anything to standard output. Exit immediately with zero status if any match is found, even if an error was detected. Also see the -s or --no-messages option.

-R, -r, --recursive
    Read all files under each directory, recursively; this is equivalent to the -d recurse option.

-V, --version
    Display version information and exit.

ptargrep is a parallel implementation of the grep command, designed to efficiently search large files or sets of files. It leverages multiple CPU cores to speed up the searching process by dividing the input files into chunks and processing them concurrently. This results in significantly faster search times compared to standard grep, especially when dealing with large datasets or when the search pattern is computationally intensive.

It aims to be a drop-in replacement for grep in many situations, taking advantage of multi-core processors to accelerate searches. It accepts most of the same arguments as grep, including regular expressions, file specifications and search flags.

The performance gain depends on the number of available CPU cores and the size of the input files. Smaller files might not benefit as much from parallel processing due to the overhead of creating and managing threads.

It might not support all features of GNU grep. Regular expression support may vary depending on the underlying regex engine used by ptargrep.

While ptargrep aims to improve performance, there are factors that can influence its efficiency. The size of the files, the complexity of the regular expression, and the number of CPU cores all play a role. Experimentation may be needed to determine the optimal settings for a given workload.

ptargrep's error handling may differ slightly from that of standard grep. It's important to be aware of how errors are reported and handled, especially when using it in scripts or automated processes.

grep(1), find(1)