grep + problem with grep command

Question

I used the following syntax in order to find IP address under /etc

(answered by Dennis Williamson in superuser site)

but I get the message "grep: line too long"

someone have idea how to ignore this message and Continue searching other IP's address
because the message that I get stop the IP's searching -:(

(maybe because binary files?)

 grep -Er '\<([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}\>' /etc/ 
 grep: line too long 

can I get solution for this problem? maybe somthing that replace the grep ?

lidia

Answer 1

Some of the files in your /etc/ then contain VERY long lines without linebreaks, so grep skips them.

You can try ack instead. With it the syntax would be

ack -r '\<([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}\>' /etc/

Answer 2

The target of the grep search probably should be /etc/hosts (i.e. not /etc/)...