No, -v will return 0 unless every line matches: $ cat > foo here's some random text $ grep -v some foo; echo $? here's random text 0 $ gr

No, -v will return 0 unless every line matches: $ cat > foo here's some random text $ grep -v some foo; echo $? here's random text 0 $ grep -v bar foo; echo $? here's some random text 0 $ grep -vE "(here's|some|random|text)" foo; echo $? 1