Scanning a directory tree for files with lines matching pattern

Problem

The grep command only allows to search through files in one directory. The traditional way of performing this kind of search over a full directory tree on Unix systems utilizes the find(1) command in conjunction with grep(1). This is both tedious and slow.

Solution

The rgrep command has the ability to recursively descend directories. For example to scan all files matching the pattern '*.html' in the directory ~/kp3web/www/doc/ for the phrase blabla just enter

   rgrep -R '*.html' blabla ~/kp3web/www/doc/

For a full description check man rgrep.

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