How can I search all files under a specific directory that contian a specific string sequence like "superuser"
i.e. search for all files in the current directory and sub-directories (recursively) if they contain the world "superuser"
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1 Answer
grep's -R option does this:
grep -R "superuser" . EDIT: to search only .mp3 files and return their names (not the matched content, since they aren't text files anyway), use find to get a list of .mp3's and then use xargs to pass them to grep -l:
find . -name "*.mp3" -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l "superuser" If your version of find supports -exec ... + (and at least recent OS X's do), you can have find run grep directly:
find . -name "*.mp3" -exec grep -l "superuser" {} + 
- Useful additional options:
-Fto speed up fixed-string searches;-ljust show filenames, not matching lines (useful for binary files);-m 1stop reading file after 1st match.RedGrittyBrick– RedGrittyBrick2012-02-18 19:04:03 +00:00Commented Feb 18, 2012 at 19:04 - how about for a list of files with a .mp3 extension?user27449– user274492012-02-18 21:57:14 +00:00Commented Feb 18, 2012 at 21:57
- @RedGrittyBrick: Agree about
-land-m1, but I disagree about-Fbeing faster (despite that being what the F stands for). Traditional grep actually ran fastest (on large/many files) in-Emode, since that compiled the pattern into a DFA -- long startup time for the compilation, but once that was done it was very fast.-Fmode might be fast if your version of grep uses the Boyer-Moore algorithm (instead of the old naive algo), but IME most modern greps are adaptive and will choose the fastest mode automatically, no matter what flag you use.Gordon Davisson– Gordon Davisson2012-02-19 01:09:23 +00:00Commented Feb 19, 2012 at 1:09 - @Gordon: Quite right, my mistake.RedGrittyBrick– RedGrittyBrick2012-02-19 12:51:09 +00:00Commented Feb 19, 2012 at 12:51