How to find lines containing a string in linux

Question

I have a file in Linux, I would like to display lines which contain a specific string in that file, how to do this?

`man grep` tells you what you want. – fdomig Aug 03 '12 at 14:31 — fdomig, Aug 03 '12 at 14:31

knittl · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-30T08:20:14.073

129

The usual way to do this is with grep, which uses a regex pattern to match lines:

grep 'pattern' file

Each line which matches the pattern will be output. If you want to search for fixed strings only, use grep -F 'pattern' file. fgrep is shorthand for grep -F.

You can also use sed:

sed -n '/pattern/p' file

Or awk:

awk '/pattern/' file

edited Aug 30 '22 at 08:20

answered Aug 03 '12 at 14:32

knittl

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addition grep -rn 'string' /path/ if you want to search a string in a folder in which file including and line number – Julius Limson Oct 25 '18 at 07:15

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 14 '22 at 11:18

Besides grep, you can also use other utilities such as awk or sed

Here is a few examples. Let say you want to search for a string is in the file named GPL.

Your sample file

$ cat -n GPL 
     1    The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
     2    The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed
     3  the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to
     4  GNU General Public License for most of our software;

1. grep

$ grep is GPL 
  The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to

2. awk

$ awk /is/ GPL 
  The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to

3. sed

$ sed -n '/is/p' GPL
  The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to

score 13 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 09 '21 at 18:54

13

/tmp/myfile

first line text
wanted text
other text

the command

$ grep -n "wanted text" /tmp/myfile | awk -F  ":" '{print $1}'
2

The -n switch to grep prepends any matched line with the line number (followed by :), while the second command uses the colon as a column separator (-F ":") and prints out the first column of any line. The final result is the list of line numbers with a match.

edited Aug 09 '21 at 18:54

Ilario

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answered Jun 23 '16 at 05:09

deFreitas

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An answer should contain explanation of the given command. Besides, the OP was probably asking for the actual line, not the line number – Ilario Aug 04 '21 at 08:01
@Ilario Alright, feel free to give your edit contribution to the answer. – deFreitas Aug 07 '21 at 16:17

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 03 '12 at 14:36

The grep family of commands (incl egrep, fgrep) is the usual solution for this.

$ grep pattern filename

If you're searching source code, then ack may be a better bet. It'll search subdirectories automatically and avoid files you'd normally not search (objects, SCM directories etc.)

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 29 '20 at 09:45

1

Write the queue job information in long format to text file

qstat -f > queue.txt

Grep job names

grep 'Job_Name' queue.txt

answered Jul 29 '20 at 09:45

FVD

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How to find lines containing a string in linux

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