Re: Grep online files

[Bob Proulx]

Peng Yu wrote:
> I'm want to grep some online files below. Instead of downloading the
> files, I want to grep them online. Is there an option in grep or some
> tools that are similar to grep that can search online files directly?
> 
> ftp://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/mm9/database/

Of course you can use 'wget' or 'curl' or other downloader pass the
contents to grep.  That may be sufficient for what you want.  But what
you said was "instead of downloading the files".  You can't grep
locally without downloading the file by some method and providing it
to grep.  And you can't search remotely unless a remote search
interface is provided.  There isn't any way to magically avoid one or
the other.

Bob