type f -name "*.java" -exec grep -il 'foo' \ įinally, if your know the string is in a file in the current directory there's no need to use the find command. When this happens, and other search means like the "locate" command don't help, my favorite way of searching for text strings in files that are spread through a bunch of directories and sub-directories is this:įind. Want to stay up to date with regular content regarding JavaScript, React, Node.js? Follow me on LinkedIn.Linux find/grep FAQ: How can I combine the Linux find and grep commands to search a large collection of files?Ī lot of times when I need to find a file I know the text in the file that I'm looking for, but I can't remember the filename, or can't think of what directory it might be in, other than somewhere below my home directory. The name grep derives from a command in the now-obsolete Unix ed line editor tool the ed command for searching globally through a file for a regular expression and then printing those lines was g/re/p, where re was the regular expression you would use.
#Gerep command to search for text in files how to
This will produce the output as shown below: It allows you to look through files for specific text or patterns. These UNIX grep command examples show how it works: cat examplefile.txt. The GREP command in Linux is a powerful tool that you can use to find text within files.
The above command will list out the filename, line number along with the matching text from that file A wildcard search may come in handy when you can't remember what file contains a certain data item. Its task is to look at some text (in a file or in the standard output from another command) and print the lines that.
#Gerep command to search for text in files code
Suppose, you want to find the files in which a particular statement like require("express") or require('express') is used, just using a global search for express in VS Code will give many results, instead we can run the following command from a terminal in your repository.
Instead, you can use git grep command to quickly search within files. If you try to use a global search in your favorite IDE like Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text, you will get the text you are searching in hundreds or thousands of files like package.json, package-lock.json, and other un-necessary files.
Many times when working on code, you want to find out where in the repository a particular text is used, either to replace it with other text or for debugging purpose. In this article, we will see a very useful command to search for a particular text inside your project. A Very Useful Git Command For Searching Text