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If I type man tmux then /join-pane I go right to the subcommand I'm looking for:

enter image description here

But if I grep the man page then I get nothing:

$ man tmux | grep join-pane $ echo $? 1

If I try something different then it does work:

$ man tmux | grep 'terminal multiplexer' tmux -- terminal multiplexer tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals to be
  • What is going on here?
  • Why can't I grep the tmux man page for join-pane?

Some details about my operating system and the commands I'm using:

$ uname -a Darwin home.local 17.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0: Thu Jun 21 22:53:14 PDT 2018; root:xnu-4570.71.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64 $ grep --version grep (BSD grep) 2.5.1-FreeBSD $ man --version man, version 1.6c $ tmux -V tmux 2.7

As per a comment about this being a terminal issue I tried some more patterns that didn't work:

$ man tmux | grep join\-pane $ man tmux | grep "join-pane" $ man tmux | grep 'join-pane' $ man tmux | grep 'join\-pane' $ man tmux | grep "join\-pane" $ man tmux | grep -e join-pane
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  • I guessed your terminal issue. did you try with "join-pane" or join\-pane? it worked for me as well Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 4:44
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    grep --version? Cannot reproduce this with grep (GNU grep) 2.25 and man 2.7.5. Did you try grep -e join-pane yet? Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 4:49

1 Answer 1

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5

Try this,

 man tmux | col -b | grep -e 'join-pane'

man pages have buffer objects like ^H to emulate bold and underlined characters by backspacing and overstriking.

  • col will filter out those buffers.

you can check the difference by copying the man page into a file.

with buffer:

 man tmux > file1

without buffers:

 man tmux | col -b > file2
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