title: How do I get rid of “--” line separator when using grep
body: <p>I'm using the commands given below for splitting my fastq file into two separate paired end reads files:</p>
  
  <pre><code>grep '@.*/1' -A 3 24538_7#2.fq &gt;24538_7#2_1.fq
  grep '@.*/2' -A 3 24538_7#2.fq &gt;24538_7#2_2.fq
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But it's automatically introducing a <code>--</code> line separator between the entries. Hence, making my fastq file inappropriate for further processing(because it then becomes an invalid fastq format).
  So, I want to get rid of the line separator(<code>--</code>).
  PS: I've found the answer for Linux machine but I'm using MacOS, and those didn't work on Mac terminal.</p>