Quick findstring recursively in dirs (Alias from long find with xargs cmd)

alias findstring="find . -type f -print | xargs grep $1"

-4

By: dezza

2009-06-10 20:48:54

alias

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What Others Think

Why not just: alias findstring="find . -type f -iname "*$1*" ??

DaveQB · 776 weeks ago

I don't know, you tell me .. Your command didn't work on my box, no output.

dezza · 776 weeks ago

Its just using the name of the file pattern matching that find does, rather than piping it out to use grep for the same purpose. I would assume its more system efficient. It won't output anything, if there is no file to match. [david.ward@om012234 ~/dev]$ ll cgfxShader.so -r-xr-xr-x 1 david.ward sysadmins 394578 May 20 14:09 cgfxShader.so [david.ward@om012234 ~/dev]$ find . -type f -iname "*cgfxsh*" ./cgfxShader.so

DaveQB · 776 weeks ago

It's not for filenames, it's for searching for strings inside files.

dezza · 776 weeks ago

some implementations of grep won't output the filename if it's searching a single file, and sometimes xargs passes single filenames to grep. So, either add -n2 to the xargs call or -H to the grep call.

rwadkins · 775 weeks and 6 days ago

!!Critical Error!! functions and shell scripts can use "$1" - aliases should *NOT* to expose the bug, you would have to set a static positional parameter when you invoke bash... bash -s argv1 alias ekko='echo $1' ekko test Also, you need to use the `-print0 | -0` construct - the completely correct version would be: alias findstring='find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep -H'

asmoore82 · 775 weeks and 6 days ago

Oh yeah. Ok, so if its to grep files, then why not something like: grep -r "$1" ./*

DaveQB · 775 weeks and 6 days ago

@DaveQB: yes, your last command does the same thing, but there's still a good purpose for having this alias. On some older implementations of grep, the -r (recursive) option is not implemented (Older HP-UX for example). Upvoted cause I found myself in need for this command a couple times

skinp · 775 weeks and 5 days ago

Fair enough

DaveQB · 775 weeks and 3 days ago

asmoore82: Thanks alot for your correction, I also discovered when playing some more with aliases that you could not use $1 and what I had done was only because I had the perception that it would work for aliases and so it did until I tried with 2 parameters and found out I was wrong all along. Will you please explain the `-print0 | -0` construct ? And what about the bash command thing you talked about earlier in your comment, does it enable using $1 like in scripts?

dezza · 774 weeks and 5 days ago

@dezza the -print0 and -0 combo between find|xargs says that all filenames (that is, strings) passed out of find are null-terminated (via -print0) and xargs expects the input strings to be null terminated (via -0). This covers the case when filenames have spaces. You could also use the multi-argument -exec option of find so I think the command would be: find . -type f -exec grep -H {} "search string" \; Although instead of an alias you could us a bash function which does support arguments, although you have to be a little careful about quoting. I have a command in my bashrc for grepping many files: function grepfiles () { grep -lr "$1" $2; } use the --include option to restrict the search to .c files or whatever. In bash 4.0 and zsh (and possibly in other shells) there is the ** globbing syntax which means "at any depth" so potentially you could accomplish what you are trying to do with: function findstring () { grep -H "$1" **/"$2" }

bwoodacre · 774 weeks and 2 days ago

@asmoore82 find . -type f -exec grep -H "searchy bandit" {} \; I think you should put the search string after grep, your way doesn't work for me, it thinks your search argument is the filename. If I use your grepfiles function like: grepfiles STRING2FIND * It only returns one result, not all containing "STRING2FIND" Which --include option are you talking about? I don't see --include in grep --help ..

dezza · 774 weeks and 1 day ago

[dezza@dezza test]$ function findstring () { grep -H "$1" **/"$2" } > This happens when I try to assign the function, have to terminate with CTRL+C

dezza · 774 weeks and 1 day ago

I now tried with bash 4.0 and readline 6.0 and this is what happens: [dezza@dezza ~]$ findstring stylesheet *.php grep: **/something.php: No such file or directory [dezza@dezza ~]$ in .bashrc function findstring() { grep -H "$1" **/"$2"; } If I try with function findstring() { grep -H "$1" "$2"; } It finishes instantly and doesn't find anything. If I try with function findstring () { grep -H "$1" **/"$2" } bash: /home/dezza/.bashrc: line 12: syntax error: unexpected end of file bash-4.0$

dezza · 773 weeks and 1 day ago

rahimhh21 · 85 weeks and 3 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 77 weeks and 1 day ago

pugpuppies95 · 39 weeks and 2 days ago

donperi1 · 32 weeks and 2 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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