Search all files for specific string

sureshy · #1 (**permalink**) 02-05-2002

Hi Friends,

How can I search all files in all slices on a unix system for a particular string within the file.

e.g search string 'oracle'

Thanks

mib · #2 (**permalink**) 02-05-2002

grep -rn oracle /dir/

(GNU grep) 2.4.2

sureshy · #3 (**permalink**) 02-06-2002

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm afraid that command doesn't work with my version of unix :

SCO Unixware 7

I believe I need to do a find and pipe to grep but don't know the exact syntax, can you help ?

Thanks

Suresh

LivinFree · #4 (**permalink**) 02-06-2002

If you want to search the *entire* system for files containing oracle, try this:

Code:

find / -type f -exec grep -l "oracle" {} \; 2>/dev/null 1>/tmp/my_search &

That will run in the background. It's best to do this as root, and even better to do it from maintenance mode (no users on, since it'll slow everyone down), and you may also have to stop jobs like "cron"... I had a problem once doing a similar search, and grep got stuck in a FIFO created by cron...

sureshy · #5 (**permalink**) 03-06-2002

Thanks for your help folks

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