Need unix command file HELP!

[mo at wgivax.UUCP]

> From: chris at umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek)
> $ find / -exec egrep "pattern" {} \; -print 2> /dev/null

An excellent answer to the find strings in any file request.
I have a few suggestions to add:

      * if you only want the file names, use '-l' flag with
		one of the grep variants and you won't have to worry
		about redirecting stderr and out seperately
		(you won't need '-print' flag to find)

	  * if you are looking for specific strings, as opposed to
	    regular expressions, use fgrep instead of egrep

      * to print context, look into "cgrep", posted to net.source
        a short while back -- it allows you to print m lines before
		and n lines after each match

      * you only want to look at files, so add '-type f' to find

You end up with:

$ find / -type f -exec fgrep -l "string" {} \; > file

Some notes:

      * '/' can be replaced by any directory to search its sub-tree

	  * if you are looking for the same strings at periodic times,
		you might want to consider keeping a "current" file listing
		the occurrences, adding '-newer file' to the find command,
		and appending to the file, thus negating the need to pick
		up all occurrences every time.

Mike O'Shea    decvax!mcnc!unccvax!wgivax!mo