grep command: Recursively Search All Files For A String

grep command: Recursively Search All Files For A String

 

grep command: Recursively Search All Files For A String 

 

cd /path/to/dir 

grep -r "word" . 

 

grep -r "string" . 

 

Ignore case distinctions: 

grep -ri "word" . 

 

To display print only the filenames with GNU grep, enter: 

grep -r -l "foo" . 

 

You can also specify directory name: 

grep -r -l "foo" /path/to/dir/*.c 

 

find command: Recursively Search All Files For A String 

 

find command is recommend because of speed and ability to deal with filenames that contain spaces. 

cd /path/to/dir 

find . -type f -exec grep -l "word" {} + 

find . -type f -exec grep -l "seting" {} + 

find . -type f -exec grep -l "foo" {} + 

Older UNIX version should use xargs to speed up things: 

find /path/to/dir -type f | xargs grep -l "foo" 

 

It is good idea to pass -print0 option to find command that it can deal with filenames that contain spaces or other metacharacters: 

find /path/to/dir -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l "foo"