Practice this fail.

The text thinks it’s a flag.

GNU grep · Restart as often as you like

Read the error, choose a command, and learn
why it works. Nothing runs on your machine.

Browse all practice ↗

Using GNU grep, find lines in flags.txt containing the literal text -n. Your earlier attempt interpreted the pattern as an option.

The text thinks it’s a flag.

$ grep '-n' flags.txt

That dash has other plans.

Read why this fix works

The text thinks it’s a flag.

grep -- '-n' flags.txt

The -- argument ends option parsing. The following -n is therefore treated as the search pattern, not a flag. Shell quotes keep characters together, but quoting alone does not tell grep to stop interpreting command options.

GNU grep manual ↗

Practice rounds do not affect the daily score or local streak. Try today’s challenge, or choose another scenario.