Linux grep find text in file #linux

Linux-grep-text-in-file.md

How to grab a keyword or text in linux and print it out?!

// First and Recommended
grep -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e 'pattern'

-r or -R is recursive,
-n is line number, and
-w stands for match the whole word.
-l (lower-case L) can be added to just give the file name of matching files.

This will only search through those files which have .c or .h extensions:
grep --include=\*.{c,h} -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"

This will exclude searching all the files ending with .o extension:
grep --exclude=*.o -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"

For directories it's possible to exclude a particular directory(ies) through --exclude-dir parameter. For example, this will exclude the dirs dir1/, dir2/ and all of them matching *.dst/:
grep --exclude-dir={dir1,dir2,*.dst} -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"

grep -Ril "text-to-find-here" /

ack 'text-to-find-here'

grep -r "string to be searched"  /path/to/dir

// you are trying (example: ) for searching in all javascript files (*.js):
find . -name '*.js' -exec grep -i 'string to search for' {} \; -print

find / -type f -exec grep -H 'text-to-find-here' {} \;

If your grep doesn't support recursive search, you can combine find with xargs:

Faster and easier alternatives

RipGrep - fastest search tool around:

rg 'text-to-find-here' / -l The Silver Searcher:

ag 'text-to-find-here' / -l ack:

ack 'text-to-find-here' / -l

find / -type f | xargs grep 'text-to-find-here'