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18

I want to find all files which contain a specific string of text. The grep command works, but I don't know how to use it for every directory (I can only do it for my current directory). I tried reading man grep, but it didn't yield any help.

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6 Answers

up vote 32 down vote accepted

It would be better to use 

grep -rl "string" /path

where

  • -r (or --recursive) option is used to traverse also all sub-directories of /path, whereas
  • -l (or --files-with-matches) option is used to only print filenames of matching files, and not the matching lines (this could also improve the speed, given that grep stop reading a file at first match with this option).
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3  
Actually if "string" is a text pattern to find, it's better to use that functionality, otherwise someone can face problems when the string contains dot or special character which has meaning in regular expressions and not just a dot which should be found as a string, as-is. Then I would use -rlF switches, -F for "fixed string" (and not regexp - for example). Of course, if the task was using regexps, then excuse me. Sure, the same theory without -r too, I often see that people assumes grep searches "text" and it can cause problems which special ones which mean something as a regexp. – LGB Aug 1 '11 at 12:19
There is also the -i flag which ignores case. – Marco Ceppi♦ Aug 1 '11 at 13:15
I would only to show the --recursive option, there are ton of options and usage scenarios one can talk about. I started from the @dmityugov accepted answer and modified to work without find. – enzotib Aug 1 '11 at 13:42
I would appreciate if you include the meaning of the command in your answer, e.g. the meaning of the options -rl. – N.N. Aug 8 '11 at 15:54
@N.N.: done :-) – enzotib Aug 8 '11 at 16:04
up vote 34 down vote

If you're looking for lines matching in files, my favorite command is:

grep -Hrn 'search term' path/to/files
  • -H causes the filename to be printed (implied when multiple files are searched)
  • -r does a recursive search
  • -n causes the line number to be printed

path/to/files can be . to search in the current directory

Further options that I find very useful:

  • -I ignore binary files (complement: -a treat all files as text)
  • -F treat search term as a literal, not a regular expression
  • -i do a case-insensitive search

  • --color=always to force colors even when piping through less. To make less support colors, you need to use the -r option:

    grep -Hrn search . | less -r
  • --exclude-dir=dir useful for excluding directories like .svn and .git.

Example output

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5  
-H on a folder is redundant, if there is more then one file, as is probable. In fact, the man page says -H, --with-filename: Print the file name for each match. This is the default when there is more than one file to search. – enzotib Aug 1 '11 at 12:31
I did not know that, it always worked like I expected. It's my default command when looking for files. – Lekensteyn Aug 1 '11 at 12:34
Is there a way to only consider files with a, say, .a extention (and to combine this with -r)? – user2413 Nov 4 '12 at 22:54
1  
@user2413 Try --include '*.*' – Lekensteyn Nov 5 '12 at 15:24
up vote 8 down vote

I believe you can use something like this:

find /path -type f -exec grep -l "string" {} \;
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1  
Thanks you! Please, Could you explain what are these options mean? – Smile Aug 1 '11 at 11:53
2  
find is a command that lets you find files and other objects like directories and links in subdirectories of a given path. If you don't specify a mask that filesnames should meet, it enumerates all directory objects. -type f specifies that it should proceed only files, not directories etc. -exec grep specifies that for every found file, it should run grep command, passing its filename as an argument to it, by replacing {} with the filename – dmityugov Aug 1 '11 at 12:01
okay, thanks a lot! – Smile Aug 1 '11 at 12:13
2  
@dmityugov, could you edit your answer with that explanation? More people will see it there than in a comment. – michaelms Aug 1 '11 at 12:26
up vote 5 down vote

If you’re willing to try something new, give ack a shot. The command to recursively search the current directory for string is:

ack string

Installation is quite simple:

curl http://betterthangrep.com/ack-standalone > ~/bin/ack && chmod 0755 !#:3

(Provided you’ve already got the directory ~/bin and it’s preferably in your PATH.)

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1  
Or just apt-get install ack-grep (, and add alias ack=ack-grep to your .bashrc) – markijbema Aug 1 '11 at 20:37
up vote 5 down vote

My default command is

grep -Rin string *

I use a capitol 'R' because ls uses it for recursive. Since grep accepts both, no reason to not use it.

EDIT: per HVNSweeting, apparently -R will follow symlinks where as -r will not.

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1  
To search in hidden files too, run shopt -s dotglob (remember -s as "set"). Be careful when removing files then. If you've dotglob enabled, rm -r * removes everything in the current dir, but also the directory above it because .. matches. To disable dotglob, use shopt -u dotglob ("unset"). The changes are temporary though, it only applies to the current shell. – Lekensteyn Aug 1 '11 at 19:09
I forgot about this. Is there a way to set it for one the one line? something like shopt -s dotglob & <grep cmd> & shopt -y dotglob only more convenient? This way we won't have to worry about resetting it – user606723 Aug 1 '11 at 19:42
Also, it's probably easier to use grep -Rin string . in most of these cases. I just use * because it seems to come more naturally. – user606723 Aug 1 '11 at 19:44
shops -s dotglob;grep -Rin string *;shopt -u dotglob works. – Lekensteyn Aug 1 '11 at 19:56
yeah... but.. it'd be nice if there was a command that only worked for the single line. instead of turning it on and off in the same line, whjich is silly – user606723 Aug 1 '11 at 20:13
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up vote 0 down vote

I do this using xargs, a very underrated command

find ./ | xargs grep string_you_are_looking_for

find ./ gives you a recursive list of all the files in a current folder then you pipe it to xargs that executes the grep command on each one of those files

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2  
Using xargs without -print0 option to find and -0 option to xargs is deprecated, it will fail on filenames containing spaces. – enzotib Aug 1 '11 at 15:45

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