How can I grep for \tfoobar\t? I've tried: egrep '\tfoobar\t' file didn't work. But this does: egrep '[[:space:]]foobar[[:space:]]' file but space matches to much stuff for me. TIA -- Jeff Macdonald <jeff.macdonald at e-dialog.com> -- Jeff Macdonald <jeff.macdonald at virtualbuilder.com> Into birding? Check out http://www.migratus.com