Display filename before matching line

Solution 1:

Try this little trick to coax grep into thinking it is dealing with multiple files, so that it displays the filename:

grep 'pattern' file /dev/null

To also get the line number:

grep -n 'pattern' file /dev/null

Solution 2:

If you have the options -H and -n available (man grep is your friend):

$ cat file
foo
bar
foobar

$ grep -H foo file
file:foo
file:foobar

$ grep -Hn foo file
file:1:foo
file:3:foobar

Options:

-H, --with-filename

Print the file name for each match. This is the default when there is more than one file to search.

-n, --line-number

Prefix each line of output with the 1-based line number within its input file. (-n is specified by POSIX.)

-H is a GNU extension, but -n is specified by POSIX

Solution 3:

No trick necessary.

grep --with-filename 'pattern' file

With line numbers:

grep -n --with-filename 'pattern' file