Linux command line: Find all files with a certain extension in a directory tree containing specific text

Question

I would like to recursively traverse a directory tree and extract all files which contain a certain text in a remote Linux machine. I found a helpful command in this website:

grep -iRl "your-text-to-find" ./

Now however, I would like to modify this slightly by searching only in python (.py) files. I tried the following but it doesn't seem to work:

grep -iRl "your-text-to-find" ./*.py

How can I modify the command such that it recursively finds all .py files containing "your-text-to-find?

`find ./ -type f -iname '*.py' -print0 | xargs -0 grep "your-text-to-find"`? Check https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1987926/how-do-i-grep-recursively — Wiktor Stribiżew, Feb 05 '21 at 13:16
That seems a lot more complicated than the commands in my original question... does it really have to be that complex? — user32882, Feb 05 '21 at 13:18
Again,there is [another answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/8684886/3832970) in that thread, `grep -riL --include "*.py" "your-text-to-find" .` — Wiktor Stribiżew, Feb 05 '21 at 13:20
Does this answer your question? [How do I grep recursively?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1987926/how-do-i-grep-recursively) — Wiktor Stribiżew, Feb 05 '21 at 13:21
@WiktorStribiżew not really, since I am looking for only .py files. That answer basically does the same thing as the first command example in my question... — user32882, Feb 05 '21 at 13:24
Look again at https://stackoverflow.com/a/8684886/3832970, just replace `txt` with `py` — Wiktor Stribiżew, Feb 05 '21 at 13:26
If you want to recursively want to check the directory tree, we will need to use find, — Raman Sailopal, Feb 05 '21 at 13:33

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 05 '21 at 13:33

0

After looking through a few extra posts including this one, I found a command which works.

I am not exactly sure what xargs does but the post I mentioned explains a bit more:

 find ./ -name *.py | xargs grep "text-to-find"

answered Feb 05 '21 at 13:33

user32882

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Linux command line: Find all files with a certain extension in a directory tree containing specific text

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