I am embarassed to post such a simple question, but this is driving me nuts. The "grep -f" command just does not seem to work.

I am absolutely positive that the string exists in one of the files in the list. I have tried every combination I can imagine:

Note:
file_with_string.txt = a file with a single string
list_of_files_to_search.txt = a file which lists other files in the directory

I have tried all of the following:

grep -f file_with_string.txt list_of_files_to_search.txt

grep -f list_of_files_to_search.txt file_with_string.txt

grep file_with_string.txt -f list_of_files_to_search.txt

grep 'string' -f list_of_files_to_search.txt

grep -f list_of_files_to_search.txt 'string'

grep -f 'string' list_of_files_to_search.txt

and so on. I have also tried egrep. I can not get anything to work.

-f references a file of strings to grep for. it has nothing to do with referencing a file for a list of files to search in. so in your first example, which is about the closest, the content of the file "list_of_files_to_search.txt" would itself be the data to be grepped.

D'Oh. Thank you.

Do you know if there is a way to give grep a list of files? Other than pattern matching?