@brackenthebox:

I have grep (GNU grep) 2.5.1, which uses -R and -r for recursive on most of my machines. It can do the recursive. I don't think my solaris boxes have the -R or -r though.

So back to the original question to sharfah, is the script you use different from -R?

rattis

@brackenthebox:
Ok, I just looked at the version of grep I always use and realized that it is a modified version from my lab. Sorry about the post.

brackenthebox

@sharfah: Is that different behavior than using the -R flag?

brackenthebox

Learn 'awk' next and you'll have all you need to live on the command line. You'll wonder why people ever take their hands off the keyboard to reach for the mouse!

[duanesbrain.blogspot.com]

Duane

Here is my rgrep (recursive grep) script which I use all the time to grep within subfolders:

dir=.
pattern="$*"

dirscan()
{
grep $pattern $dir/*
for file in $dir/*
do
if [ -d $file ]; then
dir=$file
dirscan
fi
done;
}
dirscan

sharfah

Note: The problem with grep's -r option is that if none of the "pattern-matched" files are found in the current directory, grep stops looking.

IOW, if I say "grep -Hrn function *.js", it won't return anything if there aren't any .js files in the current directory, even if there are .js files in subdirectories.

emwendelin

@rattis:

Nope, its the same as -R or -r.

I spend most of my time on Solaris 8 and the grep installed doesn't support it.

sharfah

I use a series of bash functions to grep code while excluding other files (like backups, temp files, etc.) My original alias was this:
alias g='find . -type f -a ! -name ".*.sw[op]" -a ! -name "*~" -a ! -name "cscope.*" -print0 | xargs -0 grep --color -In '

Now I have more complex functions that allow me to specify a start directory and/or a filespec, in addition to the grep pattern. This way I'm not limited to searching (almost) all files in just the current directory and its children. If anyone wants them I'll post them, but there are several of them, so it'd be a bit long.

DHT

find and grep are a truly great combo. For example, to find all the use statements in perl modules under the current directory, I invoke:

find . -name "*.pm" -exec grep -n "use" {} /dev/null \;

This tells you which lines in which files have the word 'use'.

I rolled this into an alias for tcsh, but haven't migrated it to bash:

alias figr 'find . -name \!:1 -exec grep -n \!:2 {} /dev/null \;'

GuidoFubini

OK, here they are. "_g" (note the underscore) is the function that does the actual work. The rest just set various options and eventually call _g(). Also note that _g only has one line of code, regardless of how it looks here.

"g" is the command I normally use, which searches the current directory and its subdirectories for (almost) all files containing the search pattern I give it. Adding a "d" (as in gd, gdf, gdfi) says I want to specify a directory to start from. Adding an "f" says I want to specify the filespec. And adding an "i" says I want a case-insensitive search. Additional options can be given at the command line along with the search text. So if I want to see line numbers, I can add -n like this "gdfi .. \*.xml -n version" to search all *.xml files in the parent directory (and its subdirs) for the case-insensitive text "version" and see the filenames and line numbers of the matches.

I seem to recall it having an issue with directories with spaces in their names, so be watchful of that situation.

It's too bad lifehacker doesn't support code/pre or any of the other preformatted text tags. You'll have to imagine the indentation for yourself.

function _g()
{
find "$GREP_START_DIR" -type f -a -name "$GREP_FILE_PATTERN" -a ! -name ".*.sw[op]" -a ! -name "*~" -a ! -name "cscope.*" -print0 | xargs -0 grep --color -In $GREP_OPTS $@
}

function g()
{
local GREP_START_DIR="."
local GREP_FILE_PATTERN=\*
gdf $GREP_START_DIR "$GREP_FILE_PATTERN" $@
}

function gi()
{
local GREP_OPTS="-i"
g $@
}

function gd()
{
local GREP_START_DIR=$1
shift
local GREP_FILE_PATTERN=\*
gdf $GREP_START_DIR "$GREP_FILE_PATTERN" $@
}

function gdi()
{
local GREP_OPTS="-i"
gd $@
}

function gf()
{
local GREP_START_DIR="."
local GREP_FILE_PATTERN=$1
shift
gdf $GREP_START_DIR "$GREP_FILE_PATTERN" $@
}

function gfi()
{
local GREP_OPTS="-i"
gf $@
}

function gdf()
{
local GREP_START_DIR=$1
shift
local GREP_FILE_PATTERN=$1
shift
_g $@
}

function gdfi()
{
local GREP_OPTS="-i"
gdf $@
}

DHT

@DHT: I'd like to see them. If you'd rather not post them then email me at emwendelin < at ] gmail

Thanks!

emwendelin

Wow. That's a really cool way to do some quick greps. I think I'll have to tweak to my needs and use that. Thanks!

emwendelin

You're very welcome. I'm glad somebody else can use it!

DHT

I recently discovered ack.

It's a Perl script that works like grep but supports full Perl regular expressions. It also ignores .svn, .hg, .git, and CVS sub-directories (to name a few) by default.

I find it's a pretty good grep replacement and now has a permanent place in my ~/bin/.

pseutro

I've started writing a lot of shell-script lately for a personal server I set up at home.

cat + grep + awk have proven to be such a powerful combo... They are a very nice combination of powerful and flexible tools.

I wish I had these tutorials about 2 moths ago, they would've been so useful!

ARodX7