Install the application with the following command in the Terminal:Ĥ. Go through the following steps to install and use the tool:ġ. The tool can search a directory recursively and returns the file names and the highlighted content that you search.
Let's gradually add the most useful options to our search.ġ. The simplest syntax to find a string in a single file using the grep command is:īy default, the search with grep is case sensitive. The grep tool is built into the operating system, so you don't need to install it.
There is also a Windows alternative to grep called findstr, which you can read more about in our article How to Search Files in Windows 10. The utility is supported by the UNIX, Linux, and Mac operating systems. In fact, the grep command is in the top 15 of the most used commands in Linux, according to Hostinger.
xml, etc.), but cannot search in other types of documents such as OpenOffice files, PDF files and others. Grep can search in all kinds of text files (.txt. It was created more than 45 years ago! Its developer is the American computer scientist Ken Thompson. The most popular command-line tool for searching text in Linux is grep.
Note: If you are a Mac user, you can take a look at our article How to Search Text in Your Documents on Mac. In this article we will introduce you to different types of search applications, so that you can choose the most suitable one for you. Whether they are able to search only in text files, or in all commonly used document types.The applications are mainly distinguished by the following characteristics: Which application will be most suitable for you depends on your needs and preferences. There are many different applications that can do a good job for you. For Linux users, the need to search for words in one or multiple files arises quite often.