How do I Invert search using grep for multiple strings of text

Question

I am trying filter out couple of blocks of text that keep repeating over and over in my log file. For eg;

grep -v ("string one that I don't want" \| "string two that I don't want") file.log

I tried several variations of this and tried tweaking the white spaces . Sometimes it will filter out the first string sometimes neither. What will be the correct format to filter out more than one block of text using grep ?

Answer 1

You can use -e option multiple times in grep to skip multiple search items:

grep -v -e "string one that I don't want" -e "string two that I don't want" file.log

OR else use regex using grep -E for extended regex support:

grep -vE 'string one|string two' file.log