Search all text files?

nextekcarl · 10-20-2004, 11:00 AM

here, I need a way to search every text file on my hard drive for a certain phrase, but I have no idea where to start. I know it could take a very long time, but that's OK. I just need a list of the file (or maybe files) that contains the phrase I am looking for. Thanks.

apolinsky · 10-20-2004, 11:34 AM

Russell Sage wrote a book entitled 'Tricks of the Unix Masters' published by Sams. He created a script he deemed tgrep. grep, I'm sure you know, will search for patterns within files. Usining tgrep you would specify the pattern, and the place you want to start your search. I hesitate to list the code because of possible copyright issues, but might suggest a simple search would lead the code.

toubo · 10-20-2004, 11:37 AM

Try this:

find / -name "*.txt" -exec grep ABC {} \;

This script will search all file ending with txt from root and look for ABC string.

Toubo

nextekcarl · 10-20-2004, 11:46 AM

Will this find the string in config type files, too?

apolinsky · 10-20-2004, 12:18 PM

grep searches all files