How to search for file with particular text

pranavojha · 10-30-2008, 11:29 PM

Hi,

I was asked to search for a file that contains the text "error:". I am not aware where that file is or what it's name is.

Someone suggested using

Code:

grep "error:" *

Which can look for a file within a particular directory only. How about looking for a file with text in the whole filesystem?

i92guboj · 10-31-2008, 12:11 AM

Code:

grep -R 'error:' /*

pranavojha · 11-01-2008, 01:54 AM

Is that the best way to look for a file containing specified text through commands ?

billymayday · 11-01-2008, 01:58 AM

What more do you want? Grep is designed for finding strings in files.

openSauce · 11-01-2008, 10:47 AM

If you know or can guess a few other things about the file, you can use find to look for only files with certain properties, and reduce the search time.

e.g. with this command, you'll only search regular files with a ".txt" extension less than 50k in size:

Code:

find / -type f -name "*.txt" -size -50k -exec grep 'error:' \{\} \+

check out man find for other options.

pixellany · 11-01-2008, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pranavojha

Is that the best way to look for a file containing specified text through commands ?

Why not talk to the person who requested this and get a better definition of the problem? For example, what directories need to be searched?

There is often no "best way" to do something in Linux.......