https://github.com/simplelinuxscripts/findlines
Linux bash script to find all lines or multi-line paragraphs which contain a set of strings in filtered files of current folder and its subfolders recursively, in a simple way for most common usage, without need of complex regular expressions. Special characters and binary files contents can be searched.
https://github.com/simplelinuxscripts/findlines
accented-characters bash find grep paragraphs recursive search special-characters
Last synced: 3 months ago
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Linux bash script to find all lines or multi-line paragraphs which contain a set of strings in filtered files of current folder and its subfolders recursively, in a simple way for most common usage, without need of complex regular expressions. Special characters and binary files contents can be searched.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/simplelinuxscripts/findlines
- Owner: simplelinuxscripts
- Created: 2025-01-10T20:34:48.000Z (9 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-05-20T19:15:22.000Z (5 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-05-20T20:55:29.994Z (5 months ago)
- Topics: accented-characters, bash, find, grep, paragraphs, recursive, search, special-characters
- Language: Shell
- Homepage: https://simplelinuxscripts.github.io/findlines/
- Size: 447 KB
- Stars: 2
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
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README
#### Linux bash script to find all lines or multi-line paragraphs which contain a set of strings in filtered files of current folder and its subfolders recursively, in a simple way for most common usage, without need of complex regular expressions. Special characters and binary files contents can be searched.
### USAGE:
`fl [-i] [-p=N] [-w] [pathstr|/pathstr]* str [+|-|++|-- str]*`
### DESCRIPTION:
The goal of this linux bash script (`fl` for "find lines") is to simply and quickly display all the lines
or multi-line paragraphs matching the `str` parameters in all the files being filtered
by the `pathstr` parameters, see below examples.
Special characters (like *, +, |, :, ...) do not need to be escaped, they are searched
directly as provided in the `str` parameters, which makes the usage very simple.
Binary files contents are also searched, so that as many matching lines as possible are
displayed at the end and no occurrence is missed.
### OPTIONS:
`-i`: ignore lower/upper case during the search
`-p=N`: consider paragraphs of 2N+1 lines during the search (N >= 1) instead of line
by line search (2N+1 = N lines before first str matching line + first str
matching line + N lines after first str matching line)
`-w`: first str to find shall be a whole word (word-constituent characters are letters,
digits and underscore)
### EXAMPLES:
`fl str`
=> find all lines containing str in all files of current folder and its subfolders
`fl .c str`
=> find all lines containing str in the .c files of current folder and its subfolders
`fl .c .h str1 + str2 - str3`
=> find all lines containing str1 and str2 and not str3 in the .c or .h files
of current folder and its subfolders
`fl .c .h str1 ++ str2 -- str3`
=> find all lines containing str1 and then str2 and then not str3 in the .c or .h files
of current folder and its subfolders
`fl mypathstr str`
=> find all lines containing str in the files of current folder and its subfolders
whose path contains "mypathstr" ("mypathstr" in file or folder names)
`fl .c /mypathstr str`
=> find all lines containing str in the .c files of current folder and its subfolders
whose path does not contain "mypathstr" ("mypathstr" not in file and folder names)
`fl -i .c str`
=> find all lines containing str in the .c files of current folder and its subfolders
with lower/upper case ignored
`fl -p=1 .c str1 + str2`
=> find all 3 lines long paragraphs containing str1 and str2 in the .c files
of current folder and its subfolders
`fl -p=2 .c str1 ++ str2 -- str3`
=> find all 5 lines long paragraphs containing str1 and then str2 and then not str3
in the .c files of current folder and its subfolders
`fl -w .c str`
=> find all lines containing the whole word "str" in the .c files of current folder
and its subfolders
Of course, all operators `+/-/++/--` and all options `-i/-p=N/-w` can be used jointly.
Examples of searches with special characters:
\- Special characters can be searched directly, for example
`fl "(a*b+[(x/y)-z] || d == e & f)"` will search exactly this string without need to escape
the special characters.
\- Linux shell's special characters \\, \$, \` and " shall be escaped with \\\\, \\\$, \\\` and \\" respectively.
For example `fl "\\xxx\$"` will search all lines containing "\\xxx\$" in all files.
\- Special characters can also be searched directly with their ASCII code, for example:
`fl $'\x09'` will search all lines containing tab characters (\t) in all files,
`fl $'\x0D'` will search all lines containing carriage return characters (\r) in all files.
Practical examples:
\- search of several consecutive strings (line by line search):
\- search of several consecutive strings in 3-line paragraphs:
