Grep through a \n terminated list of people and phone extensions

gistfile1.sh

# Quick Bash function to lookup telephone extensions. Better if agrep is installed.
# Usage:
# $ tel steve
# 3900 - Steve Challis

PHONE_LIST='/usr/share/phone-extensions.txt'

tel() {
    if [ ! $1 ]
    then
        # Show all if no argument specified                                     
        cat $PHONE_LIST | less
    else
        # Use agrep if available
        type -p agrep &>/dev/null && grepper="agrep -1" || grepper="grep"       
        echo "$grepper -i $* $PHONE_LIST | egrep "^[^\*].*"" | bash -;
    fi
}