I'm not completely sure what you mean when you say that you "don't know the name up front". Do you mean that you just don't happen to know right now what you'll be searching for, but when the time comes you'll have a definite search term? If so, you could do something like:

Code:

foreach term ( searchterm1 searchterm2 searchterm3 )
echo -n $term "  " ; grep -l $term file1 file2 file3 | wc -l
end

That will show, for each search term, how many different files it appears in. Alternately, this:

Code:

foreach term ( searchterm1 searchterm2 searchterm3 )
echo -n $term "  " ; grep -l $term file1 file2 file3 | tr '\n' ' ' ; echo " "
end

However, I suspect that this comes closest to what you need:

Code:

foreach term ( searchterm1 searchterm2 searchterm3 )
set filecount = `grep -l $term file1 file2 file3 | wc -l`
if ( $filecount > 1 ) then
echo $term $filecount
endif
end

That will give you the search term, followed by the number of files it appears in, so long as that number is 2 or more. You can make it just show the search term by removing the "$filecount" from the 4th line. That sounds close to what you describe. If not, let us know and I'm sure we can whip it into shape.

Oh, this is all in CSH.

Sadly, I haven't had a chance to check out the Thai food around here yet. It's on the list, but if you recall the name, I'll bump it to the top. Have fun.