How do I find all files containing specific text on Linux?

Answer 1

Use pwd to search from any directory you are in, recursing downward

grep -rnw `pwd` -e "pattern"

Update Depending on the version of grep you are using, you can omit pwd. On newer versions . seems to be the default case for grep if no directory is given thus:

grep -rnw -e "pattern"

or

grep -rnw "pattern"

will do the same thing as above!

Answer 2

Hope this is of assistance...

Expanding the grep a bit to give more information in the output, for example, to get the line number in the file where the text is can be done as follows:

find . -type f -name "*.*" -print0 | xargs --null grep --with-filename --line-number --no-messages --color --ignore-case "searthtext"

And if you have an idea what the file type is you can narrow your search down by specifying file type extensions to search for, in this case .pas OR .dfm files:

find . -type f \( -name "*.pas" -o -name "*.dfm" \) -print0 | xargs --null grep --with-filename --line-number --no-messages --color --ignore-case "searchtext"

Short explanation of the options:

1. . in the find specifies from the current directory.
2. -name "*.*" : for all files ( -name "*.pas" -o -name "*.dfm" ) : Only the *.pas OR *.dfm files, OR specified with -o
3. -type f specifies that you are looking for files
4. -print0 and --null on the other side of the | (pipe) are the crucial ones, passing the filename from the find to the grep embedded in the xargs, allowing for the passing of filenames WITH spaces in the filenames, allowing grep to treat the path and filename as one string, and not break it up on each space.

Answer 3

You can use this:

grep -inr "Text" folder/to/be/searched/

Answer 4

All previous answers suggest grep and find. But there is another way: Use Midnight Commander

It is a free utility (30 years old, proven by time) which is visual without being GUI. It has tons of functions, and finding files is just one of them.

Answer 5

Try:

find . -name "*.txt" | xargs grep -i "text_pattern"

Answer 6

There is an ack tool that would do exactly what you are looking for.

http://linux.die.net/man/1/ack

ack -i search_string folder_path/*

You may ignore -i for case sensitive search