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UAdapter
Asked: 2011-05-03 04:27:14 +0800 CST

How to search for files containing specific word?

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How to search for files containing specific word?

command-line

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    With command line you have several options. The 3 I use the most are...

    1. locate {part_of_word}

      This assumes your locate-database is up to date but you can update this manually with: sudo updatedb

    2. grep as explained by dr_willis. One remark: -R after grep also searched within directories. Example: 

      cd\
grep -R {something_to_look_for} {where_to_look_in}

    3. find . -name '*{part_of_word}*' -print

    Where . is the directory where you are at the moment and * is a wildcard.

    Oh and you can also combine these. Example: locate {something}|grep {some_part_of_something}|more

    If I recall correctly: locate is the fastest one (assuming your database is up to date) and find is the slowest one. And grep is the most complex but also the most versatile one of these since you can use regexes.

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  2. grep -R "what" "where"

    example:

    grep -R hello /home

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  3. You can use grep to list the files containing word in the given directory:

    grep -Ril word directory

    Here:
    * -R recursively search files in sub-directories.
    * -i ignore text case
    * -l show file names instead of file contents portions. (note: -L shows file names that do not contain the word).

    use man grep to get all the options

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  4. The grep command is commonly used for this.

    grep PATTERN filename

    and grep can do some very complex searching. 

    willis@Cow:~$ grep --help
Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
Search for PATTERN in each FILE or standard input.
PATTERN is, by default, a basic regular expression (BRE).
Example: grep -i 'hello world' menu.h main.c
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