Searching a string using grep

Question

I want to search a line of code, which i want to debug, in my current directory. I donot the name of the file which contains the string. I tried this

grep -F "<div id="serv">"

But it doesn't return any result and the cursor just keeps blinking in terminal. The directory has many files so maybe its taking a lot of time for it to execute. Please help.

fedorqui · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-07 12:26:04Z

1

This is because of the quotes and because you did not specify where it has to look for. Try this:

grep -F '<div id="serv">' *

or

grep -F '<div id="serv">' /your/dir/*

answered Nov 7, 2013 at 12:26

fedorqui

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4 Comments

Archit Verma Over a year ago

* means it will search all the files in the current directory and subdirectories?

fedorqui Over a year ago

* means in this directory. If you want to search in subdirectories, add -r to grep: grep -rF ...

Archit Verma Over a year ago

It worked but it is giving the result test/theme.php:echo '<div id="serv">' . "\n";. But there is no test folder in my directory. So what does that mean?

fedorqui Over a year ago

Mmmm it is difficult to say. To know which is the exact file matching, write the full path in grep: grep -F .... /your/dir/*.

Jotne · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-07 12:32:22Z

0

Using awk

awk '/<div id="serv">/ {print NR,$0,"->",FILENAME}' *

This will search all files for <div id="serv">
If found, print line number, line and filename,

answered Nov 7, 2013 at 12:32

Jotne

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