This is a weak point of grep, it can't handle large lines that don't fit fully into memory:
- superuser.com/questions/1703029/is-there-a-limit-for-a-line-length-for-grep-command-to-process-correctly what is the grep line limit?
- unix.stackexchange.com/questions/223078/best-way-to-grep-big-binary-file/758528#758528 Ciro's
bgrepcanon - large not required but mentioning bgrep anyways:
- superuser.com/questions/1368263/use-grep-for-a-long-line-to-get-the-part-of-the-line/1811969#1811969
- unix.stackexchange.com/questions/217936/equivalent-command-to-grep-binary-files/758544#758544
- stackoverflow.com/questions/2034799/how-to-truncate-long-matching-lines-returned-by-grep-or-ack/77263826#77263826
- stackoverflow.com/questions/9988379/how-to-grep-a-text-file-which-contains-some-binary-data leaving this one alone for now
- stackoverflow.com/questions/65674717/how-to-check-if-a-binary-file-is-contained-inside-another-binary-from-the-linux search pattern from file
There seems to be no way without a pipe, you seem to need to reparse the columns, e.g. the tutorial at: csvkit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial/2_examining_the_data.html#csvgrep-find-the-data-you-need does:
csvcut -c county,item_name,total_cost data.csv | csvgrep -c county -m LANCASTERSimple example:output:
printf '00,11,22\n33,44,55\n' | csvgrep -H -c2 -r '^11$' | tail -n+200,11,22- no formatting;
- stackoverflow.com/questions/2614764/how-to-create-a-hex-dump-of-file-containing-only-the-hex-characters-without-spac
- unix.stackexchange.com/questions/10826/shell-how-to-read-the-bytes-of-a-binary-file-and-print-as-hexadecimal/758531#758531
- stackoverflow.com/questions/2003803/show-hexadecimal-numbers-of-a-file/77262369#77262369
- stackoverflow.com/questions/9515007/linux-script-to-convert-byte-data-into-a-hex-string/77262375#77262375
Is this the one?
Build failed with
undefined reference to pcre_config on Ubuntu 23.04: github.com/DavyLandman/csvtools/issues/18Unfortunately it is lacking some basic options, like optional header + selecting column by index on
csvgrep (though csvcut has it). The project seems kind of dead.Also unclear if it allows to filter + print only selected columns.
A compiled executable under
/usr/bin/csvtool, has an Ubuntu 23.04 package: manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lunar/en/man1/csvtool.1.htmlThere seems to be no sane filtering mechanism however: stackoverflow.com/questions/46540752/using-csvtool-call-to-filter-csv-in-bash
Lots of features, but slow because written in Python. A faster version may be csvtools. Also some annoyances like obtuse header handing and missing features like grep + cut in one go: csvgrep and select column in csvkit.
Our WIP script: wikipedia/import-categories.sh.
Related:
- opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/1533/download-wikipedia-articles-from-a-specific-category
- webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/16359/is-there-a-way-to-download-a-list-of-all-wikipedia-categories/172480#172480
- stackoverflow.com/questions/40119322/how-to-download-all-pages-inside-a-category-in-wikipedia
- category tree on Stack Overflow
- stackoverflow.com/questions/17432254/wikipedia-category-hierarchy-from-dumps/77313490#77313490 Canon but no good answers.
- stackoverflow.com/questions/12227134/how-to-fetch-category-tree-of-wiki
- stackoverflow.com/questions/21782410/finding-subcategories-of-a-wikipedia-category-using-category-and-categorylinks-t. Actually explains it: stackoverflow.com/questions/21782410/finding-subcategories-of-a-wikipedia-category-using-category-and-categorylinks-t/21798259#21798259
- stackoverflow.com/questions/27279649/how-to-build-wikipedia-category-hierarchy
- mdkzaman.com/knowledge-graph-from-wikipedia-category-hierarchy/
Consider:
Let's observe them in MySQL:outputs:
mysql enwiki -e "select page_id, page_namespace, page_title, page_is_redirect from page where page_namespace in (0, 14) and page_title in ('Computer_storage_devices', 'Computer_data_storage')"+----------+----------------+--------------------------+------------------+
| page_id | page_namespace | page_title | page_is_redirect |
+----------+----------------+--------------------------+------------------+
| 5300 | 0 | Computer_data_storage | 0 |
| 42371130 | 0 | Computer_storage_devices | 1 |
| 711721 | 14 | Computer_data_storage | 0 |
| 895945 | 14 | Computer_storage_devices | 0 |
+----------+----------------+--------------------------+------------------+mysql enwiki -e "select cl_from, cl_to from categorylinks where cl_from in (5300, 711721, 895945, 42371130)"+----------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| cl_from | cl_to |
+----------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 5300 | All_articles_containing_potentially_dated_statements |
| 5300 | Articles_containing_potentially_dated_statements_from_2009 |
| 5300 | Articles_containing_potentially_dated_statements_from_2011 |
| 5300 | Articles_with_GND_identifiers |
| 5300 | Articles_with_NKC_identifiers |
| 5300 | Articles_with_short_description |
| 5300 | Computer_architecture |
| 5300 | Computer_data_storage |
| 5300 | Short_description_matches_Wikidata |
| 5300 | Use_dmy_dates_from_June_2020 |
| 5300 | Wikipedia_articles_incorporating_text_from_the_Federal_Standard_1037C |
| 711721 | Computer_architecture |
| 711721 | Computer_data |
| 711721 | Computer_hardware_by_type |
| 711721 | Data_storage |
| 895945 | Computer_data_storage |
| 895945 | Computer_peripherals |
| 895945 | Recording_devices |
| 42371130 | Redirects_from_alternative_names |
+----------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+So we see that
cl_from encodes the parent categories:- parent categories of categories:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_data_storage, which has ID
711721, has parent categories: "Computer hardware by type", "Computer data", "Data storage", "Computer architecture". This matches exactly on the database. These are all encoded on the source code of the page:{{DEFAULTSORT:Storage}} [[Category:Computer hardware by type]] [[Category:Computer data|Storage]] [[Category:Data storage|Computer]] [[Category:Computer architecture]] - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_storage_devices has parent categories: "Computer data storage", "Recording devices", "Computer peripherals". This matches exactly on the database.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_data_storage, which has ID
- parent categories of pages:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_storage_devices whish is a redirect gets the magic category "Redirects_from_alternative_names", a humongous placeholder with many thousands of pages: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Redirects_from_alternative_names
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_data_storage shows only two categories onthe web UI: "Computer data storage" and "Computer architecture". Both of these are present on the database and at the end of the source code:The others appear to be more magic. Two of them we can guess from the templates:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Computer Data Storage}} [[Category:Computer data storage| ]] [[Category:Computer architecture]]are likely{{short description|Storage of digital data readable by computers}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}Use_dmy_dates_from_June_2020andArticles_with_short_descriptionbut the rest is more magic and not necessarily present in-source.
So to find all articls and categories under a given category title, say en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematics we can run:
mariadb enwiki -e "select cl_from, cl_to, page_namespace, page_title from categorylinks inner join page on page_namespace in (0, 14) and cl_from = page_id and cl_to = 'Mathematics'" Download titles of all Wikipedia articles without redirects by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/latest/enwiki-latest-all-titles-in-ns0.gz Characterization:
- contains redirects, e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/"Ampere_North" redirects to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_North,_New_Jersey and both are present. Noted in this comment: stackoverflow.com/questions/24474288/how-to-obtain-a-list-of-titles-of-all-wikipedia-articles#comment136016773_24474476
The schema is listed at: www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Categorylinks_table
On the SQL:
CREATE TABLE `categorylinks` (
`cl_from` int(8) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
`cl_to` varbinary(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`cl_sortkey` varbinary(230) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`cl_timestamp` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT current_timestamp() ON UPDATE current_timestamp(),
`cl_sortkey_prefix` varbinary(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`cl_collation` varbinary(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`cl_type` enum('page','subcat','file') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'page',
PRIMARY KEY (`cl_from`,`cl_to`),
KEY `cl_timestamp` (`cl_to`,`cl_timestamp`),
KEY `cl_sortkey` (`cl_to`,`cl_type`,`cl_sortkey`,`cl_from`),
KEY `cl_collation_ext` (`cl_collation`,`cl_to`,`cl_type`,`cl_from`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=binary ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED;The format appears to be described at: www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Categorylinks_table
A sample INSERT entry is:
(3,'Computer_storage_devices',88,11,0)dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/latest/enwiki-latest-category.sql.gz contains a list of categories. It only contains the categories and some counts, but it doesn't contain the subcategories and pages under each category, so it is a bit pointless.
The schema is listed at: www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Category_table
The SQL first defines the table:followed by a few humongous inserts:which we can see at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_storage_devices
CREATE TABLE `category` (
`cat_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`cat_title` varbinary(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`cat_pages` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
`cat_subcats` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
`cat_files` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
PRIMARY KEY (`cat_id`),
UNIQUE KEY `cat_title` (`cat_title`),
KEY `cat_pages` (`cat_pages`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=249228235 DEFAULT CHARSET=binary ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED;INSERT INTO `category` VALUES (2,'Unprintworthy_redirects',1597224,20,0),(3,'Computer_storage_devices',88,11,0)Se see that en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_storage_devices_by_companyso it contains only categories.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_storage_devices is a subcategory of that category and it appears in that file.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronis_Secure_Zone is a page of the category, and it does not appear
We can check this with:and it shows:There doesn't seem to be any interlink between the categories, only page and subcategory counts therefore.
sed -s 's/),/\n/g' enwiki-latest-category.sql | grep Computer_storage_devices(3,'Computer_storage_devices',88,11,0
(521773,'Computer_storage_devices_by_company',6,6,0The generic tool recommendation question: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/7425/is-there-a-robust-command-line-tool-for-processing-csv-files
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.
Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact