Finding all files containing a text string on Linux

Do the following: grep -rnw ‘directory’ -e “pattern”

-r is recursive, -n is line number and -w stands match the whole word. Along with these, –exclude or –include parameter could be used for efficient searching. Something like below: grep –include=\*.{c,h} -rnw ‘directory’ -e “pattern”

This will only search through the files which have .c or .h extensions. Similarly a sample use of –exclude: grep –exclude=*.o -rnw ‘directory’ -e “pattern”

Above will exclude searching all the files ending with .o extension. Just like exclude file it’s possible to exclude/include directories through –exclude-dir and –include-dir parameter, the following shows how to integrate –exclude-dir: grep –exclude-dir={dir1,dir2,*.dst} -rnw ‘directory’ -e “pattern”

This works for me very well, to achieve almost the same purpose like yours.

ORgrep -Ril “text-to-find-here” /

    i stands for upper/lower case (optional in your case).
    R stands for recursive.
    l stands for “show the file name, not the result itself`.