List file names based on a filename pattern and file content?

Question

How can I use grep command to search file name based on a wild card "LMN2011*" listing all files with this as beginning?

I want to add another check on those file content.

If file content has some thing like

LMN20113456

Can I use grep for this?

grep -ls "LMN2011*"   "LMN20113456"

What is the proper way to search the file names and its contents using shell commands?

clt60 · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-06T08:52:15.980

Grep DOES NOT use "wildcards" for search – that's shell globbing, like *.jpg. Grep uses "regular expressions" for pattern matching. While in the shell '*' means "anything", in grep it means "match the previous item zero or more times".

More information and examples here: http://www.regular-expressions.info/reference.html

To answer of your question - you can find files matching some pattern with grep:

find /somedir -type f -print | grep 'LMN2011' # that will show files whose names contain LMN2011

Then you can search their content (case insensitive):

find /somedir -type f -print | grep -i 'LMN2011' | xargs grep -i 'LMN20113456'

If the paths can contain spaces, you should use the "zero end" feature:

find /somedir -type f -print0 | grep -iz 'LMN2011' | xargs -0 grep -i 'LMN20113456'

How can i write the result filenames to a text file in the server — zod, May 06 '11 at 17:29

score 35 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 03 '13 at 08:58

It can be done without find as well by using grep's "--include" option.

grep man page says:

--include=GLOB
Search only files whose base name matches GLOB (using wildcard matching as described under --exclude).

So to do a recursive search for a string in a file matching a specific pattern, it will look something like this:

grep -r --include=<pattern> <string> <directory>

For example, to recursively search for string "mytarget" in all Makefiles:

grep -r --include="Makefile" "mytarget" ./

Or to search in all files starting with "Make" in filename:

grep -r --include="Make*" "mytarget" ./

it would be nice to know, "how it can be done without find", really, only to share point of view — Victor, Apr 08 '16 at 04:25

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered May 06 '11 at 16:39

8

grep LMN20113456 LMN2011*

or if you want to search recursively through subdirectories:

find . -type f -name 'LMN2011*' -exec grep LMN20113456 {} \;

answered May 06 '11 at 16:39

Aoife

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How can i write the result filenames to a text file in the server – zod May 06 '11 at 17:30
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Use grep -l to list matched filenames instead of matched lines and then redirect the output to a file. – Aoife May 06 '11 at 22:46

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Nov 04 '13 at 13:16

0

find /folder -type f -mtime -90 | grep -E "(.txt|.php|.inc|.root|.gif)" | xargs ls -l > WWWlastActivity.log

edited Nov 04 '13 at 13:16

fedorqui

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answered Jan 15 '13 at 14:42

ugnelakys

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 02 '16 at 08:29

0

Assume LMN2011* files are inside /home/me but skipping anything in /home/me/temp or below:

find /home/me -name 'LMN2011*' -not -path "/home/me/temp/*" -print | xargs grep 'LMN20113456'

answered Sep 02 '16 at 08:29

ohho

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List file names based on a filename pattern and file content?

5 Answers5