Search a directory: http://stackoverflow.com/a/16957078/2611971
Do the following:
grep -rnw 'directory' -e "pattern"
-r is recursive, -n is line number and -w stands match the whole word. Along with these, --exclude or --include parameter could be used for efficient searching. Something like below:
grep --include=\*.{c,h} -rnw 'directory' -e "pattern"
This will only search through the files which have .c or .h extensions. Similarly a sample use of --exclude:
grep --exclude=*.o -rnw 'directory' -e "pattern"
Above will exclude searching all the files ending with .o extension. Just like exclude file it's possible to exclude/include directories through --exclude-dir and --include-dir parameter, the following shows how to integrate --exclude-dir:
grep --exclude-dir={dir1,dir2,*.dst} -rnw 'directory' -e "pattern"
This works for me very well, to achieve almost the same purpose like yours.