Find a file that contains a string

[Karthik Rajashekaran]

Hi

I am trying to find a command to find a string in a file in Linux /Unix

Note : you dont know which directory the file is or which file does it have the string

 

[Jim Laughlan]

Hi

I am trying to find a command to find a string in a file in Linux /Unix

Note : you dont know which directory the file is or which file does it have the string

This should help
http://www.ehow.com/how_6763477_search-string-file-unix.html

 

[Karthik Rajashekaran]

No this case you need to mention the file name ... Here I dont know file name and path .. So it has search the entire directory and file and get the matches

 

[Karthik Rajashekaran]

Please help me out ..

 

[ryanvade]

grep -r "text string to search” /*

 

[Karthik Rajashekaran]

no it didnt help me ...

 

[ryanvade]

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-recursively-search-all-files-for-words/

 

[arochester]

( @ryanvade I saw that too.)

@Karthik Rajashekaran If you don't specify a Directory it will take a VERY, VERY long time to come up with an answer because it is searching every file on the Hard Drive. You need to wait forever - and then some more.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Also, if you start your grep at "/", you'll have some issues with permissions, unless you are root.

You can save yourself some time and aggravation if you can skip binaries, also.

so: sudo grep -rI "text string to search” /*

 

[ryanvade]

Also, if you start your grep at "/", you'll have some issues with permissions, unless you are root.

You can save yourself some time and aggravation if you can skip binaries, also.

so: sudo grep -rI "text string to search” /*

Not sure if case matters. But yeah, use sudo or run the command as root.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

well for a case-insensitive grep, use -i (-I means ignore binary, of course).

 

[ryanvade]

well for a case-insensitive grep, use -i (-I means ignore binary, of course).

 

[Pantek Support]

I prefer to use grep in conjunction with find for this kind of effort. Ie:

find /path -exec grep "Search String Here" {} \; -ls

 

[Jefff]

Use this for color coded results back:

grep -iIHrn --color=always yourtexthere . | less -r

You can also make a function for it in your .bashrc file:

# Searches for text in all files in the current folder
ftext ()
{
   # -i case-insensitive
   # -I ignore binary files
   # -H causes filename to be printed
   # -r recursive search
   # -n causes line number to be printed
   # optional: -F treat search term as a literal, not a regular expression
   # optional: -l only print filenames and not the matching lines ex. grep -irl "$1" *
   grep -iIHrn --color=always "$1" . | less -r
}