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Unix/Linux — Find files that contain a string

By Rares Vernica

To find the files that contain a string we can use:

find . -exec grep -l “string to find” {} \;

This starts the search from the current directory, looks for files that  contain the specified string, and then it prints their names.

This entry was posted on July 30, 2006 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Unix/Linux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Unix/Linux — Find files that contain a string”

  1. radu Says:
    July 30, 2006 at 11:32 pm |

    If you also want to print an excerpt of the matched text, change the command to:

    find . -exec grep -H “string to find” {} \;

    In both cases, for faster results (does not spawn multiple grep instances), reverse grep with find like this:

    grep -l “string to find” `find .`

    or

    grep -H “string to find” `find .`

  2. danielneri Says:
    July 25, 2008 at 12:15 pm |

    great, most helpful!

  3. mojowen Says:
    March 18, 2009 at 12:13 am |

    thanks dude!

  4. mojowen Says:
    March 18, 2009 at 12:43 am |

    I’ve been liking the original better:

    find . -exec grep -l “string to find” {} \;

    I tend to get an error that says “Argument List Too Long” when I use Radu’s.

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