How to grep for the exact word if the string has got dot in it

Question

I was trying to search for a particular word `BML.I` in a current directory. When I tried with the below command: ``` grep -l "BML.I" * ``` It is displaying all the results if it contains the word `BML` Is it possible to grep for the exact match `BML.I`

Accepted Answer

You need to escape the . (period) since by default it matches against any character, and specify -w to match a specific word e.g.

```
grep -w -l "BML\.I" *
```

Note there are two levels of escaping in the above. The quotes ensure that the shell passes `BML\.I` to grep. The `\` then escapes the period for `grep`. If you omit the quotes, then the shell interprets the `\` as an escape for the period (and would simply pass the unescaped period to `grep`)

How to grep for the exact word if the string has got dot in it

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