recursive search of a string in a directory ?!

realos · 11-26-2002, 11:41 AM

hello,

I would like to search for a string in all the files situated in two different directories. What is the best way to do so?

it works fine for one file with "less file | grep string" but I don`t know how to produce output of less recursively. Is there some other way to do the job?

thanks in anticipation people,

Bert · 11-26-2002, 12:54 PM

You've tripped into the trap of thinking the less command needs to do something recursively! It's grep that needs to do this recursively, surely:

grep -re string > outfile.txt

-e is for a regular expression. -r is recursively. If you want to do this for HTML tags, have a look at regexlib on google. I've seen some tools in Perl for this purpose. Even wrote one myself once!

Bert

realos · 11-26-2002, 03:51 PM

thanks Bert,

it works. I just stuck because I thought "less " had to provide input for grep recursively.

this forum is great :-)

regards,

Realos

Bert · 11-26-2002, 05:35 PM

You're welcome.
Wenn ich die Wahl haette, wuerde ich immer Linux fuer dieser Art Probleme benutzen, weil man kann dass nicht mit Windows machen. Man hat Perl mit Linux oder wass - VisualStudio.NET ? Dass ist ein(en?) Witz!!

That was a private joke as my German is rusty.

realos · 11-27-2002, 04:49 AM

> Das ist ein(en?) Witz!!
correct: das ist EIN Witz.

anyhow, stay cool.