[SOLVED] Searching for a word in several different files and directories at the same time

Linux.Girl · 10-29-2017, 12:10 PM

Hello friends,

I know how to search for filenames containing a certain word.

What I need is different - I need a command that searches for a word in a directory that contains many files - but note - the word is not in the title of the file, it is in the text.

Is there a way to find a command that scans the contents of all files in a directory searching for a specific word?

Thanks,

linux.girl

MadeInGermany · 10-29-2017, 01:03 PM

grep!

Code:

grep -Hw word *

prints filename:line

Code:

grep -hw word *

prints the lines only.

Code:

grep -lw word *

prints the filenames only.

Code:

man grep

for other options.

Linux.Girl · 10-29-2017, 01:06 PM

Yes, but I want to search several files at the same time - what you wrote me will search only in one specific file, or I got you wrong?

Patrick59 · 10-29-2017, 01:41 PM

Hello,

Is this something like that ? :

Code:

find . -type f -exec grep -lR mytext {} \;

MadeInGermany · 10-29-2017, 02:08 PM

The shell replaces the * with all files in the current directory.
So grep will search the "word" in all of them.
You can restrict this to certain files.
For example *.txt means all files whose filenames end with .txt

joe_2000 · 10-30-2017, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadeInGermany

grep!

Code:

grep -Hw word *

prints filename:line

Code:

grep -hw word *

prints the lines only.

Code:

grep -lw word *

prints the filenames only.

Code:

man grep

for other options.

One additionally interesting option might be -r ... to search directories recursively.

AwesomeMachine · 10-30-2017, 07:09 PM

Maybe:

Code:

$ grep -r word /etc

will search every file in /etc, even subdirectories.

Linux.Girl · 10-31-2017, 01:03 PM

Many thanks for all the suggestions, thread marked as solved!

Sefyir · 10-31-2017, 02:18 PM

Unless the file you're searching is definitely binary, I'd suggest using the -I flag

Quote:

-I Process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data; this is
equivalent to the --binary-files=without-match option.