[ -z "$*" ] && exit 5 ## If no query, exit

## If the $phbase variable is not set,
## place the default files in $_phbase
for f in ${phbase:-/var/data/phones $HOME/.phones}
do
    [ -f "$f" ] && _phbase="$_phbase $f"
done

## Search files listed in $_phbase, ignoring comments
[ -n "$_phbase" ] && egrep -ih "$@" $_phbase 2>/dev/null | grep -v '^#'
