grep -r pattern ./ without recursion?

Question

I want to run the grep -r pattern ./ but WITHOUT recursively going through the sub directories. When I removed the -r flag, I didn't get any output in my terminal. What flag am I supposed to use to grep for patterns in files in my current directory only?

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered May 14 '11 at 20:29

5

$ grep
Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...

so

grep fred *

will look for fred in the files in the current directory.

By using -r you are explicitly requesting recursion.

answered May 14 '11 at 20:29

user9517

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered May 14 '11 at 20:28

2

grep pattern *

also try: grep -l patter * to see which files matched

if you didn't get any output, that means no matches were found.

answered May 14 '11 at 20:28

jftuga

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grep -r pattern ./ without recursion?

2 Answers2