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I have to find some words in a lot of log files after I've run a failed build.

  1. If I do that:
grep -r "myword"

I have too much responses. I don't want to search all the files in all the sub directories.

  1. If I do that:
grep -r "myword" *.xml

It works because I have an *.xml file in current directory, but I have no responses because... it's not that kind of file I'm searching for.

  1. If I do that:
grep -r "myword" *.log

It responds:
No file or directory of that type

because there's no log file in the current directory.
But there are plenty of them, below, in target subdirectories. (a find . -name *.log will list me them).

How shall I write the grep command to achieve the result I want? I've tried to end my command with a variety of *.log, .log, **/*.log, */**/*.log, but without success.

Marc Le Bihan
  • 1,797
  • Relating: https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/14498/315749 – fra-san Mar 31 '21 at 12:07
  • @fra-san I had no success with grep -rn "myword" **/*.log or grep -n "myword" *.log suggested in this post. – Marc Le Bihan Mar 31 '21 at 12:14
  • The find alternative in the linked Q/A is the portable one (i.e. works in any POSIX shell). Those based on ** depend on the shell you are using. E.g. if it's Bash, check your version and make sure shopt globstar says "on" (turn it on with shopt -s globstar); with zsh it should work by default. If your question cannot be considered a duplicate of the Q/A I linked to, please add the shell you are using to it. – fra-san Mar 31 '21 at 12:27
  • @fcbsd I'm unable to remind a so long command. – Marc Le Bihan Mar 31 '21 at 13:31
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    This won't help you immediately, but the trick is not to remember this long command. The trick is to get familiar with find, so you can craft such command anew whenever you need and tailor it to your requirements. BTW the exact command posted by @fcbsd cannot work, it uses () where {} should be. – Kamil Maciorowski Mar 31 '21 at 13:44
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    With GNU grep, you should be able to use grep -r --include='*.log' myword – steeldriver Mar 31 '21 at 13:50
  • @steeldriver Yes, this one works. Thanks! – Marc Le Bihan Mar 31 '21 at 15:18
  • fixed verison: find . -name "*.log" -type f -exec grep "myword" {} \; -print when I need to use grep in multiple directories – fcbsd 2 hours ago Delete – fcbsd Mar 31 '21 at 15:24

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