Go as a scripting language: lightweight, safe and fast

yourbasic.org/golang

This example is a simplified version of the Unix grep command. The program searches the input file for lines containing the given pattern and prints these lines.

func main() {
	log.SetPrefix("grep: ")
	log.SetFlags(0) // no extra info in log messages

	if len(os.Args) != 3 {
		fmt.Printf("Usage: %v PATTERN FILE\n", os.Args[0])
		return
	}

	pattern, err := regexp.Compile(os.Args[1])
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalln(err)
	}

	file, err := os.Open(os.Args[2])
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalln(err)
	}
	defer file.Close()

	scanner := bufio.NewScanner(file)
	for scanner.Scan() {
		line := scanner.Text()
		if pattern.MatchString(line) {
			fmt.Println(line)
		}
	}
	if err := scanner.Err(); err != nil {
		log.Println(err)
	}
}

More code examples

Go blueprints: code for com­mon tasks is a collection of handy code examples.

Share this page: