How do I grep for a greater than symbol?

Question

I am trying to grep for a php function call

grep -Ri '->someFunction' .

But it's not working. What am I doing wrong?

Instead of `grepping` in `.`, `grep` all files. `grep '->someFunction' *.*` — Luc M, Apr 05 '13 at 14:37
I updated my question to reflect my actual use of using the `-Ri` flags — Drew LeSueur, Apr 05 '13 at 14:40

Gilles Quénot · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-05T17:50:58.613

55

It's not the quotes : try this :

grep -Ri -- '->someFunction' .

the -- part stands for end of options ; it's a shell trick.

edited Apr 05 '13 at 17:50

answered Apr 05 '13 at 14:37

Gilles Quénot

Thank you! it totally worked! `grep -Ri -- '->someFunction' .` – Drew LeSueur Apr 05 '13 at 14:42
1

If you're on an old system you have to say '`grep -e`' instead of '`grep --`'. However, greps that old probably don't support `-R`. – zwol Apr 05 '13 at 15:01
2

Also, it would be better to describe `--` as "end of *options*", not "end of *arguments*". You have got arguments after the `--`, it's just that a leading `-` is no longer special. – zwol Apr 05 '13 at 15:02

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 05 '13 at 15:57

This is one of those cases where "it's not working" isn't enough to diagnose the problem.

In your case, the error message you got was

 grep: invalid option -- >

That is your clue to see that ->someFunction is being seen as a command-line switch.

I also suggest that you may want to look at ack, which is meant for this sort of source code searching. In your case, you would do:

ack -i -- '->someFunction'

2 Answers2