[SOLVED] Find occurrence of word (or a list of words) in files but not repeat printing

fanoflq · 03-14-2017, 11:15 AM

Grep can be used to find words in all files of a directory.
It then displays the line containing the word.
It prints as many lines as it finds for the same file.
This clutters up the screen badly.

I like it to print only once.

Here are possible scenarios:
a) Find a word in all files in a directory,
but only prints the filename once for word found,
and proceed to the next file for the search.

b) Find a list of words in all files in a directory,
but only prints the filename once
(for each word in the list when found),
and proceed to the next file
(when list of words is completed)
for the search.

Is there another command to do this other than grep?

Thank you.

hazel · 03-14-2017, 12:08 PM

Grep has a lot of different display options. You are seeing its default behaviour, which is to print every matching line. You can also print only the first matching line from each file or just the names of files that contain a match.

As a general principle, it's always worth reading the man page for a command if its default behaviour isn't satisfactory. This is especially the case for old unix commands like grep, which often have many and complex option sets.

szboardstretcher · 03-14-2017, 12:11 PM

Here is your stock standard normal grep output::

Code:

[root@tools test]# grep -Ri WORD
testdir14/somefile:WORD
testdir16/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir99/somefile:WORD
testdir93/somefile:WORD

Here is the same grep with each filename listed only once:

Code:

[root@tools test]# grep -Ri WORD|uniq
testdir14/somefile:WORD
testdir16/somefile:WORD
testdir17/somefile:WORD
testdir99/somefile:WORD
testdir93/somefile:WORD

Same with number of results in each file:

Code:

[root@tools test]# grep -Ri WORD|uniq -c
      1 testdir14/somefile:WORD
      1 testdir16/somefile:WORD
      7 testdir17/somefile:WORD
      1 testdir99/somefile:WORD
      1 testdir93/somefile:WORD

fanoflq · 03-14-2017, 12:35 PM

Thank you all.

I found this option:

Quote:

-m NUM, --max-count=NUM
Stop reading a file after NUM matching lines. If the input is standard input from a regular file, and NUM matching lines are output, grep ensures that the standard input is positioned to just after the last matching line before exiting, regardless of the presence of trailing context lines. This enables a calling process to resume a search. When grep stops after NUM matching lines, it outputs any trailing context lines. When the -c or --count option is also used, grep does not output a count greater than NUM. When the -v or --invert-match option is also used, grep stops after outputting NUM non-matching lines.

There seems to be no option to print only filenames.
I guess we have to use awk for that.

szboardstretcher · 03-14-2017, 12:38 PM

Quote:

-l, --files-with-matches
Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each input file from which output would normally have been printed. The scanning will stop on the
first match. (-l is specified by POSIX.)

That work? Or do you mean 'filename only' and no path at all?

fanoflq · 03-14-2017, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by szboardstretcher

That work? Or do you mean 'filename only' and no path at all?

That works. Thanks.

Code:

~/dir00 $ grep -iRl "hello"                                                                                     
hello1
hello2
hello3

~/dir00 $ grep -il "hello" *
grep: dir: Is a directory
hello1
hello2
hello3

As for full pathname, I did not find any option for that.

DavidMcCann · 03-14-2017, 01:34 PM

If you just wanted to check which files have the word, how about

Code:

for file in path/*.txt; do  grep -iq searchterm $file && echo $file; done

fanoflq · 03-14-2017, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

If you just wanted to check which files have the word, how about

Code:

for file in path/*.txt; do  grep -iq searchterm $file && echo $file; done

Thanks.
Works!

Code:

~ $ for file in ./dir00/*; do  grep -iq "hello" $file && echo $file; done                                         
grep: ./dir00/dir: Is a directory
./dir00/hello1
./dir00/hello2
./dir00/hello3

fanoflq · 03-14-2017, 03:44 PM

What the heck, one more....

Quote:

~/dir00 $ find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | xargs grep -il "hello"
./hello1
./hello2
./hello3