Learn how to grep by context will give you better result

I learned that grep command supports few options called "context" searching. Basically it can print lines around the matching string! For example, you can use this feature to perform a quick Java threads stack analysis like this (assuming you have a java process PID=12345).

bash> jstack 12345 | grep --color 'State: BLOCKED' -B 1
"A-Bad-Boy-Thread" prio=5 tid=0x00007fcfbc895800 nid=0xcd03 waiting on condition [0x00000001657cb000]
   java.lang.Thread.State: BLOCKED (on object monitor)

See, without the "-B 1" option, which show one line before match, you won't know which name of the tread that's acting up! Now isn't that a gem!

You may also use "-A 5" to see 5 more lines after the match. Or you may use the "-C 5" to see 5 lines before and after the match.

PS: There is nothing wrong with a "BLOCKED" thread in Java, however if you got one that won't go away, then it's a good indicator that something is fishy about that thread in your application; because in a well designed app, threads should be in BLOCKED state as briefly as possible. Read the javadoc on java.lang.Thread.State for more details.