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

To search recursively across all files (across multiple lines within each file) with BOTH strings present (i.e. string1 and string2 on different lines and both present in same file):

grep -r -l 'string1' * > tmp; while read p; do grep -l 'string2' $p; done < tmp; rm tmp 

To search recursively across all files (across multiple lines within each file) with EITHER string present (i.e. string1 and string2 on different lines and either present in same file):

grep -r -l 'string1\|string2' *