[SOLVED] find and grep: strange behavior

kikinovak · 02-13-2016, 05:38 AM

Hi,

I just noticed something weird on a fresh installation of Slackware -current. Let's say I'm looking for all files containing "TERM" in /etc. Here's what I would do:

Code:

# grep -l "TERM" /etc/* 2> /dev/null | sort
/etc/DIR_COLORS
/etc/csh.login
/etc/login.defs
/etc/lynx.cfg
/etc/profile
/etc/termcap
/etc/termcap-BSD
/etc/termcap-Linux
/etc/zprofile

Now I'm doing things differently:

Code:

# find /etc -type f -maxdepth 1 | xargs grep -l "TERM" | sort
/etc/DIR_COLORS
/etc/csh.login
/etc/login.defs
/etc/lynx.cfg
/etc/profile
/etc/termcap
/etc/termcap-BSD
/etc/termcap-Linux

How comes /etc/zprofile doesn't appear when I use the second method?

Let's try this with a different character string. First method:

Code:

# grep -l "PS1" /etc/* 2> /dev/null | sort
/etc/profile
/etc/zprofile

Second method:

Code:

# find /etc -type f -maxdepth 1 | xargs grep -l "PS1" | sort
/etc/profile

Same thing. I'm puzzled. Any idea what's going on here?

titopoquito · 02-13-2016, 05:48 AM

I think zprofile is a link, not a real file.

kikinovak · 02-13-2016, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by titopoquito

I think zprofile is a link, not a real file.

Duh. Maybe I should go out a little bit.

Paulo2 · 02-13-2016, 06:08 AM

-L option (RTFindM

)

canadensis · 02-14-2016, 03:28 PM

kikinovak: "Duh. Maybe I should go out a little bit."

LOL. But still interesting and possibly useful to note the different results you got with the two different searches.