I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite fit
grep.

I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
them.

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

If not I can probably produce a bash script to do it using grep, i.e.
use grep to get a list of files with the first word, grep that list of
files for the second word, and so on. However if there's a ready made
tool for doing it I'd like to know about it.

--
Chris Green
ú

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Hellow Chris,
Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> writes:

I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite fit
grep.

I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
them.

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

If not I can probably produce a bash script to do it using grep, i.e.
use grep to get a list of files with the first word, grep that list of
files for the second word, and so on. However if there's a ready made
tool for doing it I'd like to know about it.

There is very simple way. You don't need any scripting or programming knowledge. See below: (file size is too big to send email with attach) <https://gitlab.com/soyeomul/Gnus/-/raw/d1c1a821330fec849c74813dab9c3d069be5940f/stuff/grep-gmail.png>

Sincerely, Byunghee
--
^????? _????_ ?????_^))//


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Byunghee HWANG (???) <soyeomul@doraji.xyz> wrote:

[-- text/plain, size 1.2K, charset utf-8, 35 lines, encoding quoted-printable --]

Hellow Chris,

Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> writes:

I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite fit grep.

I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
them.

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

If not I can probably produce a bash script to do it using grep, i.e.
use grep to get a list of files with the first word, grep that list of files for the second word, and so on. However if there's a ready made
tool for doing it I'd like to know about it.

There is very simple way. You don't need any scripting or programming knowledge. See below: (file size is too big to send email with attach) <https://gitlab.com/soyeomul/Gnus/-/raw/d1c1a821330fec849c74813dab9c3d069be5940f/stuff/grep-gmail.png>

That's just an image of my message in Gmail, I can't work out where
it's supposed to take me. I can get to the Gnus project in Gitlab but
then couldn't find anything very relevant.

N.B. the diary/journal entries are on my own system, not on the cloud
anywhere.

--
Chris Green
ú

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 09:35:25 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/079

I believe you want the section entitled

foo AND bar in the same file, not necessarily on the same line

although it's hard to be sure, because your problem description is
somewhat unclear. (What is the format of a "journal entry"?)

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 09:35:25 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/079

I believe you want the section entitled

foo AND bar in the same file, not necessarily on the same line

although it's hard to be sure, because your problem description is
somewhat unclear. (What is the format of a "journal entry"?)

You have understood what I wanted. You've also shown me that,
probably, rolling my own bash script to do it is the way to
go. The solutions in the bashFAQ thread do much as I was suggesting
when I asked the question.

Thanks.

--
Chris Green
ú

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

I'd use find with grep for that.
--
John Hasler
john@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 4:50?AM Chris Green wrote:

I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite fit
grep.

I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
them.

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

AWK
The trick being to set the record seperator (RS) to whatever delimits
a single journal entry .. like a null line, so multiple lines are
treated as a single record.
for example

$ cat journal.txt
The green fox
jumps over the
red dog.

The green fox
jumped over the
deep barrel full
of water.

The brown dog
jumped over the
deep barrle full
of water.

$ awk -v RS="" '/green/ && /water/ && /deep/ {print $0}' journal.txt
The green fox
jumped over the
deep barrel full
of water.

Regards
Lee

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri 27 Feb 2026 at 04:50:42 (-0500), Chris Green wrote:

I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
them.

"ugrep" will do what you want. If you want to stick with regular grep,
you can do an "OR" match with a one-liner (not what you asked) but a script
or function would be needed for "AND".

Test files

me% ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 77 28-Feb-2026 17:43:21 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 143 28-Feb-2026 17:43:26 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 224 28-Feb-2026 17:43:36 c
-rw-r--r-- 1 vogelke mis 90 28-Feb-2026 17:43:42 d

me% head *
==> a <==
I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite
fit grep.

==> b <==
I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just
plain text files) for entries which have two or more specified
strings in them.

==> c <==
E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words 'green',
'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for could be
Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wildcards would
suffice).

==> d <==
Is there a tool out there that can do this? Include the word
'Green' to allow one match.

UGREP

me% ugrep --files --bool 'green AND water AND deep' *
c
1: E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words 'green',
2: 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for could be

me% ugrep -l --files --bool 'green AND water AND deep' *
c

OR match

me% grep -Eil 'green|water|deep' *
c
d

AND match

me% grep -li green * | xargs grep -li water | xargs grep -li deep
c

--
Karl Vogel I don't speak for anyone but myself

Congratulations on your promotion. Before you go, would you like to take
this knife out of my back? You'll probably need it again.
--rejected Hallmark Cards

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

python, perl, sh, bash, awk, sed, ...
$ < /usr/share/dict/words shuf | head -n 2
smoothly
launderer
$ < /usr/share/dict/words perl -e '$a=0; $b=0; while(<>){if(! $a && /smoothly/){$a=1}; if(! $b && /launderer/){$b=1}; if($a && $b){ print
"Found all by line $..\n"; exit;}}; print "Did not find all.\n";'
Found all by line 85642.
$ wc -l < /usr/share/dict/words
104334
$ < /usr/share/dict/words perl -e '$a=0; $b=0; while(<>){if(! $a && /smoXXXothly/){$a=1}; if(! $b && /launderer/){$b=1}; if($a && $b){
print "Found all by line $..\n"; exit;}}; print "Did not find
all.\n";'
Did not find all.
$

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 1:50?AM Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

I know and use grep extensively but this requirement doesn't quite fit
grep.

I want to search lots of diary/journal entries (which are just plain
text files) for entries which have two or more specified strings in
them.

E.g. I'm looking for journal entries which have, say, the words
'green', 'water' and 'deep' in them. Ideally the strings searched for
could be Regular Expressions (though simple command line type wild
cards would suffice).

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

If not I can probably produce a bash script to do it using grep, i.e.
use grep to get a list of files with the first word, grep that list of
files for the second word, and so on. However if there's a ready made
tool for doing it I'd like to know about it.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)