Grep characters before and after match?

Question

Using this:

grep -A1 -B1 \"test_pattern\" file

will produce one line before and after the matched pattern in the file. Is there a way to di

Answer 1

You mean, like this:

grep -o '.\{0,20\}test_pattern.\{0,20\}' file

?

That will print up to twenty characters on either side of test_pattern. The \{0,20\} notation is like *, but specifies zero to twenty repetitions instead of zero or more.The -o says to show only the match itself, rather than the entire line.