How to find patterns across multiple lines using grep?

Question

I want to find files that have \"abc\" AND \"efg\" in that order, and those two strings are on different lines in that file. Eg: a file with content:

blah bl         


        

Answer 1

If you have some estimation about the distance between the 2 strings 'abc' and 'efg' you are looking for, you might use:

grep -r . -e 'abc' -A num1 -B num2 | grep 'efg'

That way, the first grep will return the line with the 'abc' plus #num1 lines after it, and #num2 lines after it, and the second grep will sift through all of those to get the 'efg'. Then you'll know at which files they appear together.