Linux find file containing string

How to find all files containing specific text on Linux

How to search a directory tree for all files containing specific text string on Linux using the command line. This tutorial will help you to search all files matching a string recursively. This tutorial uses “grep” command to search string in files. Alternatively, You can also also use the find command to search files with specific string.

Syntax

grep -rwl “search-string” /path/to/serch/dir

1. Search Single String in All Files

Below example command will search string “tecadmin” in all files in /var/log directory and its sub-directories.

2. Search Multiple String in All Files

You can also specify multiple strings to search using -e switch. This is similar to egrep command. Below example will search strings “tecadmin” and “https” in all files in /var/log directory and its sub-directories.

3. Search String in Specific Files

You can search string in files matching the file name criteria. Below example command will search string “tecadmin” in files ending with .log extension in /var/log directory and its sub-directories.

4. Exclude Some Files from Search

If you want to exclude some files matching file name criteria. You can exclude some files using –exclude option in command. For example, do not search file ending with .txt extension.

5. Exclude Some Directories from Search

You can also exclude some directoires to skip search inside it. For example, do not search string files inside any folder having http in their name.

Frequently Uses Command Switches

Below is the frequently uses grep command switches. To list all switches details use grep —help command.

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Finding a File Containing a Particular Text String In Linux Server

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	grep
Est. reading time	Less than 2 minutes

You need to use the grep command. The grep command or egrep command searches the given input FILEs for lines containing a match or a text string.

grep command syntax for finding a file containing a particular text string

The syntax is:
grep » text string to search » directory-path
grep [option] » text string to search » directory-path
grep -r » text string to search «directory-path
grep -r -H » text string to search » directory-path
egrep -R » word-1|word-2 » /path/to/directory
egrep -w -R » word-1|word-2 » directory-path
Let us see some common example on how to use grep to search for strings in files.

How to search and find all files for a given text string

In this example, search for a string called ‘redeem reward’ in all text (*.txt) files located in /home/tom/ directory, use:
$ grep «redeem reward» /home/tom/*.txt
OR
$ grep «redeem reward»

Task: Search all subdirectories recursively

You can search for a text string all files under each directory, recursively with -r option:
$ grep -r «redeem reward» /home/tom/
OR
$ grep -R «redeem reward» /home/tom/
Look for all files containing cacheRoot text on Linux:
grep -R cacheRoot /home/vivek/

Trying to find all files containing specific text on my Linux desktop

Task: Only display filenames

By default, the grep command prints the matching lines. You can pass -H option to print the filename for each match:
$ grep -H -r «redeem reward» /home/tom
Sample outputs:

To just display the filename use the cut command as follows:
$ grep -H -R vivek /etc/* | cut -d: -f1
Sample outputs:

Task: Suppress file names

The grep command shows output on a separate line, and it is preceded by the name of the file in which it was found in the case of multiple files. You can pass the -h option to suppress inclusion of the file names in the output:
$ grep -h -R ‘main()’

Task: Display only words

You can select only those lines containing matches that form whole words using the -w option. In this example, search for word ‘getMyData()’ only in

/projects/ dirctory:
$ grep -w -R ‘getMyData()’

Task: Search for two or more words

Use the egrep command as follows:
$ egrep -w -R ‘word1|word2’

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Task: Hide warning spam

grep command generate error message as follows due to permission and other issues:

No such file or directory
No such device or address
Permission denied

To hide all errors or warning message spam generated by the grep command, append 2>/dev/null to grep command. This will send and hide unwanted output to /dev/null device:
$ grep -w -R ‘getMyData()’

Task: Display matched text in color

Pass the —color option to the grep command display matched text/words in color on the terminal:

Fig.01: grep command in action with colors and hiding the warnings on screen

Task: Ignore case

Our final example ignore case distinctions in both the search PATTERN and the input files:
grep -i -R ‘word’ /path/to/dir
grep -i -r ‘income tax’

How do I find all files containing specific text on Linux?

The syntax is:
egrep ‘pattern’ -rnw /path/to/dir/
egrep ‘word1|word2’ -rnw /home/vivek/backups/

Finding text strings within files using grep

In this example search for lines starting with any lowercase or uppercase letter:
grep «^[a-zA-Z]» -rns

• -r – Recursive search
• -R – Read all files under each directory, recursively. Follow all symbolic links, unlike -r grep option
• -n – Display line number of each matched line
• -s – Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files
• -w – Only work on words i.e. search only those lines containing matches that form whole words
• -l – Show the name of each input file when match found
• -i – Ignore case while searching

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Find Files Containing Specific Text in Linux

Linux, regardless of the distro you use, comes with a number of GUI tools which allow searching for files. Many modern file managers support file searching right in the file list. However, most of them do not allow you to search inside a file’s contents. Here are two methods you can use to search for file contents in Linux.

I would like to share the methods I use myself.
The first method involves the grep utility, which exists in any distro, even in embedded systems built on busybox.

To find files containing specific text in Linux, do the following.

1. Open your favorite terminal app. XFCE4 terminal is my personal preference.
2. Navigate (if required) to the folder in which you are going to search files with some specific text.
3. Type the following command:

Here are the switches:
-i — ignore text case
-R — recursively search files in subdirectories.
-l — show file names instead of file contents portions.

./ — the last parameter is the path to the folder containing files you need to search for your text. In our case, it is the current folder with the file mask. You can change it to the full path of the folder. For example, here is my command

Note: Other useful switches you might want to use with grep:
-n — show the line number.
-w — match the whole word.

Another method I use is Midnight Commander (mc), the console file manager app. Unlike grep, mc is not included by default in all Linux distros I’ve tried. You may need to install it yourself.

Find files containing specific text with mc

To find files containing some specific text using Midnight Commander, start the app and press the following sequence on the keyboard:
Alt + Shift + ?
This will open the search dialog.

Fill in the «Content:» section and press the Enter key. It will find all files with the required text.

You can place these files in the left or right panel using the Panelize option and copy/move/delete/view/do whatever you want them.

Midnight Commander is a very time-saving tool when it comes to search.

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

6 thoughts on “ Find Files Containing Specific Text in Linux ”

The code that you provided helped me. There are also another commands which I cannot remember to find text in files but this one is made it quickly. I have bookmarked this post for further usage. Thank you.

WHAT ABOUT WINDOWS?!

I use Total Commander for that.

Midnight Commander reminds me of XTree for DOS way, evidently, way way, back in the day!! 🙂 Anyone else remember!?

It reminds me of Norton Commander. Good days.

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Linux find file containing string

The commands used are mainly grep and find.

Find string in file

grep string filename

grep name file.txt

Find string in file ignoring cases

grep string filename

grep -i name file.txt

Find string in current directory

grep string .

Find string recursively

grep -r string .

Find files that do not contain a string

grep -L string .

Find string recursively in only some specific files

grep string -r . —include=*.myextension

grep string -r . —include=*.

grep «name=Oscar» -r . —include=*.js

* if you specify —include it won’t look for the string in all files, just the ones included

Find string recursively in all files except the ones that contain certain extensions

grep string -r . —exclude=*.

grep «Serializable» -rl . —exclude=*.

Find string recursively all files including some extensions and excluding others

grep string -r . —include=*.myextension —exclude=*.myextension2

grep «my=string» -r . —include=*. —exclude=*.js

*It won’t look for the string in the js files.

Find string recursively in only some specific files and show their filename

grep string -rl . —include=*.myextension

grep «name=Oscar» -rl . —include=*.js

Find files and find a string in them using find

find . -name ‘*.extension’ -exec grep string +

find . -name ‘*.txt’ -exec grep Mytext <> +

find . -type f \( -name ‘*.htm’ -or -name ‘*.html’ \) -exec grep -i «mystring» <> +

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How To Find Files by Content Under UNIX / Linux

Using grep Command To Find Files By Content on Unix or Linux

Type the command as follows:

• -i : Ignore case distinctions in both the PATTERN (match valid, VALID, ValID string) and the input files (math file.c FILE.c FILE.C filename).
• -R (or -r ): Read all files under each directory, recursively.

Highlighting searched patterns

You can highlight patterns easily while searching large number of files:
$ grep —color=auto -iR ‘getChar();’ *.c

Displaying file names and line number for searched patterns

You may also need to display filenames and numbers:
$ grep —color=auto -iRnH ‘getChar();’ *.c
Where,

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• Join my Patreon to support independent content creators and start reading latest guides:
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• -n : Prefix each line of output with the 1-based line number within its input file.
• -H Print the file name for each match. This is the default when there is more than one file to search.

Hence, type the following command:
$ grep —color=auto -nH ‘DIR’ *

Fig.01: grep command displaying searched pattern

Using find command to search files by words or string

We can also use the find command. The syntax is as follows:
find /dir/to/search -name «file-pattern» -print | xargs grep «word-to-search»
## OR ##
find /dir/to/search -iname «file-pattern» -print0 | xargs -I <> -0 grep «string-to-search» «<>»
For example, search all c program files (*.c) and look for “ main( ” and print it on the screen when matched in the current directory:
$ find . -name «*.c» -print | xargs grep «main(»
OR
$ find /projects/ -iname «*.c» -print0 | xargs -I <> -0 grep «main(» «<>»
Where find command options are:

• -name : Base of file name. For instance, look for all Perl files ( *.pl )
• -iname : Same as above ( -name
• -print : Print the full file name on the standard output.
• -print0 : Display the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character (instead of the newline character that -print uses). This allows file names that contain newlines or other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by programs that process the find output. This option corresponds to the -0 option of xargs.

And, the xargs command are:

• -I <> : Replace occurrences of <> in the initial-arguments with names read from standard input. In other words, pass <> as input to the grep command.
• -0 : Input items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace, and the quotes and backslash are not special (every character is taken literally). Disables the end of file string, which is treated like any other argument. Useful when input items might contain white space, quote marks, or backslashes. The GNU find -print0 option produces input suitable for this mode.
• grep «main(» «<>« : Search for » main( » string using the grep in a file found by find command.

Conclusion

You learned how to find files by content under UNIX and Linux using various commands. See the following resources:

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