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Re: Search for string in files

From: - Tong - <mlist4suntong(at)yahoo.com>
Date: Sat Aug 25 2007 - 20:25:10 EDT

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:37:05 -0500, Neil Gunton wrote:

>> I'm trying to figure out how to find a certain string inside a bunch of
>> files. If I, for examples, look for a certain function in a large source
>> tree, I could do
>>
>> cat `find . -name '*.c'` | grep 'a_certain_function'
>>
>> but this seems quite awkward, furthermore it doesn't help that much
>> because I don't know in which file the string was found. Maybe there's a
>> tool that makes it possible to find a string in a bunch of files and
>> also to list in which file the string was found? Or any modification to
>> the command given above?

>
> I wrote a perl script that does this (and other stuff)

I wrote such a perl script as well when in Window$. But now I stick to plain *nix solution -- why bother a script if you can do it with pure *nix command. Try this:

grep -Hn 'a_certain_function' `find . -name '*.c'`

If the find command returns over hundreds of files, which might yield command line too long error, try this:

find . -name '*.c' | xargs grep -Hn 'a_certain_function'

You can also substitute grep with agrep for much more advanced searches:

agrep text search tool with support for approximate patterns

Do you need help?

See, the combination of pure *nix command can solve every possible problems you may have, whereas in window$, you have to have thousands of individual tools for thousands of different tasks, and even with the same task, say rename files, you may have to choose from hundreds of tools to pick the one that suits your needs. Yuck.

HTH

-- 
Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply)
  
http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/
  
http://xpt.sourceforge.net/tools/


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Received on Sat Aug 25 20:26:00 2007

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