How to grep a text file which contains some binary data?

Question

grep returns

Binary file test.log matches

For example

echo    \"line1 re \\x00\\r\\nline2\\r\\nline3 re\\r\\n\" > test.log  # in zsh         


        

Answer 1

You could run the data file through cat -v, e.g

$ cat -v tmp/test.log | grep re
line1 re ^@^M
line3 re^M

which could be then further post-processed to remove the junk; this is most analogous to your query about using tr for the task.

Answer 2

grep -a will force grep to search and output from a file that grep thinks is binary. grep -a re test.log

Answer 3

You can force grep to look at binary files with:

grep --binary-files=text

You might also want to add -o (--only-matching) so you don't get tons of binary gibberish that will bork your terminal.

Answer 4

you can do

strings test.log | grep -i

this will convert give output as a readable string to grep.

Answer 5

You can use "strings" to extract strings from a binary file, for example

strings binary.file | grep foo