Interview Q&A / Linux & Shell
Linux & Shell interview questions
Permissions, processes, pipes and the commands you are expected to know cold.
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- When do you need grep -E, and what is the difference from basic grep patterns?
Basic grep treats +, ?, | and () as ordinary characters unless escaped. grep -E (extended regex) gives them their regex meaning, so grep -E 'cat|dog' matches either word. Use -F when you want a plain fixed string with no regex at all.
IntermediateQuick answer1 min read - When would you use cut instead of awk?
cut extracts fixed fields by a single-character delimiter or character positions and is simple and fast. awk handles runs of spaces, conditions and calculations. Use cut for neat CSV-like data and awk for messy whitespace-aligned output.
IntermediateQuick answer1 min read