Which symbol is used in GREP to indicate the beginning of a line?

The symbol used in GREP to indicate the beginning of a line is the caret (^). This character serves as an anchor in regular expressions, specifically designating the starting position of a string or line. When you use the caret at the beginning of a search pattern, it instructs GREP to match only those lines that start with the specified pattern following the caret. For instance, using "^abc" would match any line that begins with "abc," but would not match any line where "abc" appears later in the string.

The other symbols have different purposes in GREP: the asterisk (*) is used to indicate zero or more occurrences of the preceding character, the dollar sign ($) denotes the end of a line, and the question mark (?) signifies that the preceding character can occur zero or one time. Understanding these distinctions helps in formulating effective search patterns while using GREP, enhancing one's command over text processing in Linux environments.