MacOS – How to install and use GNU Grep in macOS

homebrewinstallmacos

I have coreutils but I am not sure if GNU grep is there.
I just want to use the flag -P for Perl regex that is found in GNU grep, but not in BSD grep.

My PATH is /usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/texbin:/Users/masi/.cabal/bin so I have coreutils first in the PATH.

However, grep is BSD when I am using it: grep --version gives grep (BSD grep) 2.5.1-FreeBSD.

Command type -p grep returns /usr/bin/grep

How can you install GNU Grep in macOS?

Best Answer

GNU grep is not part of coreutils. To install, run

brew install grep

As with coreutils, this doesn't automatically replace the existing grep

==> Caveats
All commands have been installed with the prefix "g".
If you need to use these commands with their normal names, you
can add a "gnubin" directory to your PATH from your bashrc like:
  PATH="/usr/local/opt/grep/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"

So after installing you can either use ggrep, gegrep and gfgrep; or extend PATH as shown above to use grep etc. The second option may confuse some macOS specific scripts though in case the options differ.

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