Grep

A few days ago, this message was sent around at work. I was on the list that got it:

All – please find below useful information on starting Oracle in case your server has gone down. This is very good information for all of services to have so that we’re not flooding Bill with requests during situations like a power outage.

It contained this useful nugget:

$ ps -ef grep ora
oracle 1100 1099 0 08:11:45 pts/1 0:00 ps -ef
oracle 1099 1092 0 08:11:45 pts/1 0:00 grep ora
oracle 1092 1090 0 08:11:24 pts/1 0:00 -sh
$ sqlplus /nolog

To which I replied, to a few of my friends who would get it:

Well of course. You just

$ ps -ef grep ora
oracle 1100 1099 0 08:11:45 pts/1 0:00 ps -ef
oracle 1099 1092 0 08:11:45 pts/1 0:00 grep ora
oracle 1092 1090 0 08:11:24 pts/1 0:00 -sh
$ sqlplus /nolog

Duh. Everyone knows that.

;)

To which my friend laughedbecausese he knows there's no way in hell I understood any of that shit, and asked:

"What the hell is 'grep' anyway?"

To which my dorky, accented Indian colleague, in a very serious manner replied:

"Oh, grep is a very powerful command..."

Hear that, kids? 'Grep' is a very powerful command. So don't make me use it. Because you know I will get all Grep on your ass.

It's like some kind of magic word: After many years of study, the apprentice learned the powerful command word 'grep'. Demons and vampires then feared him, for they knew he had mastered 'grep', a very powerful command.

Grep.