Having trouble creating an alias for grep

 
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Operating Systems OS X (Apple) Having trouble creating an alias for grep
# 1  
Old 03-14-2014
Having trouble creating an alias for grep

Hi,

I'm using Mac 10.9.1. I would like to create an alias for grep so that it won't print out messages like "grep: /Users/davea/workspace/myproject/subdir/: Is a directory" all the time. So in my terminal, I opened ~/.profile and entered

Code:
alias grep='grep -s'

However, when I close and re-open my terminal and then enter

Code:
find ~/workspace/myproject/ -name "*" | xargs grep 'mytoken'

I still get the above messages. What else do I need to do to make these messages go away by default?

Thanks, - Dave
# 2  
Old 03-14-2014
Code:
find ~/workspace/myproject/ -type f -exec grep 'mytoken' {} \;

Try using the full power of find. -type f restricts the search to regular files, so it excludes directories. The "*" is not needed because find looks at all files by default. if you wanted filenames that end in dat, then -name '*dat' would be required.
# 3  
Old 03-14-2014
Thanks, although my question has less to do with find and more to do with why the grep alias isn't working. Do you know why that is? I just used the find as an example, but maybe I should dig up another example that doens't involve find so as not to distract from the problem.

- Dave
# 4  
Old 03-16-2014
Quote:
Originally Posted by laredotornado
Thanks, although my question has less to do with find and more to do with why the grep alias isn't working. . . .
man bash:
Quote:
ALIASES
Aliases allow a string to be substituted for a word when it is used as the first word of a simple command. . . .
That's why none of your longer commands will be working...

Last edited by RudiC; 03-18-2014 at 10:18 AM.. Reason: grammatical error
# 5  
Old 03-17-2014
Is there anotehr way I can make "grep -s" the default behavior for my grep command assuming the "alias" I specified isn't an option?
# 6  
Old 03-17-2014
man again, here man grep:
Quote:
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The behavior of grep is affected by the following environment variables.
. . .
GREP_OPTIONS
This variable specifies default options to be placed in front of any explicit options.
This User Gave Thanks to RudiC For This Post:
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