---
title: egrep and fgrep are deprecated
description: Datadog, the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring.
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  Docs > Datadog Security > Code Security > Static Code Analysis (SAST) > SAST
  Rules > egrep and fgrep are deprecated
---

# egrep and fgrep are deprecated

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## Metadata{% #metadata %}

**ID:** `bash-code-quality/deprecated-egrep-fgrep`

**Language:** Bash

**Severity:** Notice

**Category:** Code Style

## Description{% #description %}

`egrep` and `fgrep` are legacy commands. They were deemed obsolescent by POSIX and removed from the standard. They are planned to be removed entirely in a future release.

Prefer `grep -E` for extended regular expressions and `grep -F` for fixed-string matching.

## Non-Compliant Code Examples{% #non-compliant-code-examples %}

```bash
#!/bin/bash
egrep 'pat' file.txt
fgrep needle haystack.txt
/usr/bin/egrep foo bar
```

## Compliant Code Examples{% #compliant-code-examples %}

```bash
#!/bin/bash
grep -E 'pat' file.txt
grep -F 'literal' file.txt
grep foo bar.txt
/bin/grep -E pat f
```
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