grep (GNU grep) 2.5

Hi:
I want to find files containing the "$" char (ascii 0x24). 'Grep -irl $ *' would output the names of every file in path *, of course, because it means end of line (EOL). So giving grep the string "$" won't do. So I tried 'grep -irl \$ *'. But this doesn't work either and I do not understand why. Am I not escaping the dollar sign? grep should interpret it literally. Neither 'grep -irl "$" *' will work. Fortunately, there's LQ, besides grep's man page. Any hint? Thanks for reading.

There's some sort of tomfoolery going on not just with grep, but with your shell, because $ denotes a variable. This will work:

I imagine it's because you want grep to get that \, not the shell, though I'm not sure what the shell is doing with it.

That certainly worked and I thank you. But can somebody tell me what \$ is to grep? If \$ is a var name, then a second backslash will take away that meaning, leaving this one: escaped dollar sign; which in turn takes away the meaning "end of line" leaving a mere dollar sign. But is \$ really a var name to bash (or to the shell)?

EDIT: I'm very sorry. It's all wrong. I reread AlucardZero's post and think I've now got it right.

EDIT 2: one thinks LQers will get bored with the whole story, but sometimes it's the best option. So here it goes:
I know some ebook in the HDD contains this line:
which is part of a script I want to consult. And so the need for grep. That's all.

The $ character in regular expressions denotes the end of the line, so you have to escape it to search for a literal $.

But like I said, not sure exactly what's going on with the shell.

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Well, maybe you're not sure. But I'll keep this thread anyways in my hard disk. Regards.

When you invoke
at first shell translates \$ to $ and give it to grep.
So above code is equivalent to
But if you invoke
shell translates \\ to \ and gives '-irl \$ *' to grep.
and you can get what you want.

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Hi,

alternatively you could use single quotes
This way bash will not try to interpret anything between the single quotes but just pass it "as is" to grep.

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All this is highly instructive, and thanks be given to these wonderful LQers. But then a question arises: how to know, save by careful study of a manual page, as of now several thousand lines long, the scope of things "eaten" by the shell and, therefor, what is left to programs like grep?

I presume ignorance interrogates once and again.

http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/special-chars.html

Enjoy

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Thanks Chris for the link, and may I not have to fall back on LQ so heavily in the future.