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

Answer 1

I am fascinated by how simple grep makes it with 'rl':

grep -rl 'pattern_to_find' /path/where/to/find

-r to recursively find a file / directory inside directories..
-l to list files matching the 'pattern'

Use '-r' without 'l' to see the file names followed by text in which the pattern is found!

grep -r 'pattern_to_find' /path/where/to/find

It works just perfect...

Answer 2

Avoid the hassle and install ack-grep. It eliminates a lot of permission and quotation issues.

apt-get install ack-grep

Then go to the directory you want to search and run the command below

cd /
ack-grep "find my keyword"

Answer 3

You can use grep -ilR:

grep -Ril "text-to-find-here" /

• i stands for ignore case (optional in your case).
• R stands for recursive.
• l stands for "show the file name, not the result itself".
• / stands for starting at the root of your machine.

Answer 4

find /path -type f -exec grep -l "string" {} \;

Explanation from comments

find is a command that lets you find files and other objects like directories and links in subdirectories of a given path. If you don't specify a mask that filesnames should meet, it enumerates all directory objects.

-type f specifies that it should proceed only files, not directories etc.
-exec grep specifies that for every found file, it should run grep command, passing its filename as an argument to it, by replacing {} with the filename

Answer 5

If you strictly want to use find then use find + grep:

find /path/to/somewhere/ -type f -exec grep -nw 'textPattern' {} \;

Steps:

1. Use find to search files,
2. Execute grep on all of them.

This gives you the power of find to find files.

• Use -name Pattern if you want to grep only certain files:

find /path/to/somewhere/ -type f -name \*.cpp -exec grep -nw 'textPattern' {} \;

You can use different options of find to improve your file search.

Answer 6

grep is your good friend to achieve this.

grep -r <text_fo_find> <directory>

If you don't care about the case of the text to find, then use:

grep -ir <text_to_find> <directory>