(find.info.gz) Contents

Info Catalog

(find.info.gz) Mode Bits

(find.info.gz) Finding Files

(find.info.gz) Directories

 
 2.8 Contents
 ============
 
 To search for files based on their contents, you can use the `grep'
 program.  For example, to find out which C source files in the current
 directory contain the string `thing', you can do:
 
      grep -l thing *.[ch]
 
    If you also want to search for the string in files in subdirectories,
 you can combine `grep' with `find' and `xargs', like this:
 
      find . -name '*.[ch]' | xargs grep -l thing
 
    The `-l' option causes `grep' to print only the names of files that
 contain the string, rather than the lines that contain it.  The string
 argument (`thing') is actually a regular expression, so it can contain
 metacharacters.  This method can be refined a little by using the `-r'
 option to make `xargs' not run `grep' if `find' produces no output, and
 using the `find' action `-print0' and the `xargs' option `-0' to avoid
 misinterpreting files whose names contain spaces:
 
      find . -name '*.[ch]' -print0 | xargs -r -0 grep -l thing
 
    For a fuller treatment of finding files whose contents match a
 pattern, see the manual page for `grep'.
 

Info Catalog

(find.info.gz) Mode Bits

(find.info.gz) Finding Files

(find.info.gz) Directories