a simple script to check for a given string pattern in any .c, .h, .cpp, .cxx, .m, .mm, etc source files in the current directory and any subdirectories

check-for-src-pattern

#! /bin/bash
#
# simple script to check for a given string pattern in any
# .c, .h, .cpp, .cxx, .m, .mm, etc source files
#
# you can pass your own list of extensions/file patterns as well:
#     check-for-src-pattern . "foo" .h .cpp .py .sh Makefile
#
# Dan Wilcox <[email protected]> 2014, 2016
#

# file type extensions to check (if none given)
EXTS=( ".c" ".h" ".cpp" ".hpp" ".cxx" ".m" ".mm" ".sh" ".pd" ".tcl" )

# super simple command parsing
if [ $# -lt 2 -o "$1" == "-h" -o "$1" == "--help" ] ; then
	echo "Usage: check-for-src-pattern directory \"pattern to match\" [types: h cpp ...]"
	exit 0
fi

# main arguments
DIR="$1"
PATTERN="$2"
echo "Checking for \"$PATTERN\" in $DIR"

# optional list of file type extensions, overrides EXT
if [ $# -gt 2 ] ; then
	shift; shift
	EXTS=() # clear
	while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
		EXTS=(${EXTS[@]} $1)
		shift
	done
fi

# build find file type search string from EXT array:
# ie. "-name '*.c' -o -name '*.h' -o -name '*.cpp'"
for ext in ${EXTS[*]} ; do
	if [ "$ext" == "${EXTS[0]}" ] ; then # first element
		TYPES="$TYPES -name \*$ext"
	else # everything else
		TYPES="$TYPES -o -name \*$ext"
	fi
done

# set internal field separator to endline so filenames with spaces are not broken up
IFS=$'\n'

# get a list of source files in the given dir
cd $DIR
files=$(eval "find . -type file \($TYPES \)")
for file in ${files[*]} ; do
	# check against the given pattern, print the filename and grep output if we find a match
	found=$(grep -n "$PATTERN" "$file")
	if [ "$found" != "" ] ; then
		echo "$file:"
		for line in $found ; do
			echo "  $line"
		done
		echo ""
	fi
done

Nice script! I was surprised to see that the output is soo similar to when I run ag "struct Settings":

graphics/ofTrueTypeFont.h
119:    struct Settings{

app/ofAppEGLWindow.h
44:     struct Settings;
102:    struct Settings: public ofGLESWindowSettings {

gl/ofMaterial.h
158:    struct Settings {

gl/ofShader.h
60:     struct Settings {

gl/ofFbo.h
22:     struct Settings;
208:    struct Settings {

ag is the silver searcher. I often find it useful that with it you can show context (-C 3 to show 3 lines around the hit), focus on C++ (-cpp) and many other features :) Did you know about it?

@hamoid No, I had not looked for any existing solutions when I wrote the original script. I started with some usage of find then ended up wrapping it in a script and using it more and more. It works well for me following the Unix philosophy. :)