unix match multiple patterns return success

Question

Is there an easy way to search a file for multiple patterns and return success only if both patterns are found.

For example if I had a file:

itemA
itemB
itemC
itemD

I want to print the name of all txt files that have both "itemA" and "itemD"

something like:

find . -name "*.txt" | xargs -n 1 -I {} sh -c "grep 'itemA AND itemB' && echo {}"

Ed Morton · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-27 23:33:58Z

3

awk '/ItemA/{f1=1} /ItemB/{f2=1} END{ exit (f1 && f2 ? 0 : 1) }' file

answered Jan 27, 2014 at 23:33

Ed Morton

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Comments

John Kugelman · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-27 23:11:37Z

3

find . -name "*.txt" -exec grep -l 'itemA' {} + | xargs grep -l 'itemB'

Add -Z to grep and -0 to xargs if you want to be extra careful with special characters.

answered Jan 27, 2014 at 23:11

John Kugelman

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+1 for concision. OSX users: Use --null instead of -Z with grep.

devnull · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-28 04:18:27Z

1

Translating your pseudo-code into real:

find . -name "*.txt" | xargs -n 1 -I {} sh -c "grep -q itemA {} && grep -q itemD {} && echo {}"

You could shorten this somewhat by making the second grep print the filename:

find . -name "*.txt" | xargs -n 1 -I {} sh -c "grep -q itemA {} && grep -l itemD {}"

answered Jan 28, 2014 at 4:18

devnull

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