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Linux/Unix Recursively Search All Files for a String

A quick answer here:

$ grep -r "string" .

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grep command: Recursively Search All Files For A String

The syntax is:

$ cd /path/to/dir
$ grep -r "word" .

$ To ignore case distinctions:
$ grep -ri "word" .

To display print only the filenames with GNU grep, enter:

$ grep -r -l "foo" .

You can also specify directory name:

$ grep -r -l "foo" /path/to/dir/*.c

find command: Recursively Search All Files For A String

find command is recommend because of speed and ability to deal with filenames that contain spaces.

cd /path/to/dir
find . -type f -exec grep -l "word" {} +
find . -type f -exec grep -l "seting" {} +
find . -type f -exec grep -l "foo" {} +
find /search/dir/ -type f -name "*.c" -print0 | xargs -I {} -0 grep "foo" "{}"

## Search /etc/ directory for 'nameserver' word in all *.conf files ##
find /etc/ -type f -name "*.conf" -print0 | xargs -I {} -0 grep "nameserver" "{}"

Older UNIX version should use xargs to speed up things:

$ find /path/to/dir -type f | xargs grep -l "foo"

It is good idea to pass -print0 option to find command that it can deal with filenames that contain spaces or other metacharacters:

$ find /path/to/dir -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l "foo"

OR use the following OSX/BSD/find or GNU/find example:

find /path/to/dir/ -type f -name "file-pattern" -print0 | xargs -I {}  -0 grep -l "search-term" "{}"

## OR ##
find /mycool/project/ -type f -name "*.py" -print0 | xargs -I {}  -0 grep -H --color "methodNameHere" "{}"

## OR search all files in /etc/ dir for 'nameserver' word ##
find /etc/ -iname "*" -type f -print0  |  xargs -0 grep -H "nameserver"



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