How do I find all files containing specific text on Linux?

Answer 1

I wrote a Python script which does something similar. This is how one should use this script.

./sniff.py path pattern_to_search [file_pattern]

The first argument, path, is the directory in which we will search recursively. The second argument, pattern_to_search, is a regular expression which we want to search in a file. We use the regular expression format defined in the Python re library. In this script, the . also matches newline.

The third argument, file_pattern, is optional. This is another regular expression which works on a filename. Only those files which matches this regular expression will be considered.

For example, if I want to search Python files with the extension py containing Pool( followed by word Adaptor, I do the following,

./sniff.py . "Pool(.*?Adaptor"  .*py
./Demos/snippets/cubeMeshSigNeur.py:146 
./Demos/snippets/testSigNeur.py:259 
./python/moose/multiscale/core/mumbl.py:206 
./Demos/snippets/multiComptSigNeur.py:268 

And voila, it generates the path of matched files and line number at which the match was found. If more than one match was found, then each line number will be appended to the filename.

Answer 2

To search for the string and output just that line with the search string:

for i in $(find /path/of/target/directory -type f); do grep -i "the string to look for" "$i"; done

e.g.:

for i in $(find /usr/share/applications -type f); \
do grep -i "web browser" "$i"; done

To display filename containing the search string:

for i in $(find /path/of/target/directory -type f); do if grep -i "the string to look for" "$i" > /dev/null; then echo "$i"; fi; done;

e.g.:

for i in $(find /usr/share/applications -type f); \
do if grep -i "web browser" "$i" > /dev/null; then echo "$i"; \
fi; done;

Answer 3

If your grep doesn't support recursive search, you can combine find with xargs:

find / -type f | xargs grep 'text-to-find-here'

I find this easier to remember than the format for find -exec.

This will output the filename and the content of the matched line, e.g.

/home/rob/file:text-to-find-here

Optional flags you may want to add to grep:

• -i - case insensitive search
• -l - only output the filename where the match was found
• -h - only output the line which matched (not the filename)

Answer 4

The below command will work fine for this approach:

find ./ -name "file_pattern_name"  -exec grep -r "pattern" {} \;

Answer 5

You can use ack. It is like grep for source code. You can scan your entire file system with it.

Just do:

ack 'text-to-find-here'

In your root directory.

You can also use regular expressions, specify the filetype, etc.

---

UPDATE

I just discovered The Silver Searcher, which is like ack but 3-5x faster than it and even ignores patterns from a .gitignore file.

Answer 6

There's a new utility called The Silversearcher

sudo apt install silversearcher-ag

It works closely with Git and other VCS. So you won't get anything in a .git or another directory.

You can simply use

ag "Search query"

And it will do the task for you!