Editing Find (Unix) (section)

===Search for a string===
This command will search all files from the /tmp directory tree for a string:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ find /tmp -type f -exec grep 'search string' /dev/null '{}' \+
</syntaxhighlight>
The <code>[[/dev/null]]</code> argument is used to show the name of the file before the text that is found. Without it, only the text found is printed.  (Alternatively, some versions of grep support a {{mono|-H}} flag that forces the file name to be printed.)
GNU <code>grep</code> can be used on its own to perform this task:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ grep -r 'search string' /tmp
</syntaxhighlight>

Example of search for "LOG" in jsmith's home directory tree:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ find ~jsmith -exec grep LOG '{}' /dev/null \; -print
/home/jsmith/scripts/errpt.sh:cp $LOG $FIXEDLOGNAME
/home/jsmith/scripts/errpt.sh:cat $LOG
/home/jsmith/scripts/title:USER=$LOGNAME
</syntaxhighlight>

Example of search for the string "ERROR" in all XML files in the current working directory tree:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ find . -name "*.xml" -exec grep "ERROR" /dev/null '{}' \+ 
</syntaxhighlight>
The double quotes (" ") surrounding the search string and single quotes (<nowiki>' '</nowiki>) surrounding the braces are optional in this example, but needed to allow spaces and some other special characters in the string. Note with more complex text (notably in most popular shells descended from `sh` and `csh`) single quotes are often the easier choice, since ''double quotes do not prevent all special interpretation''. Quoting filenames which have English contractions demonstrates how this can get rather complicated, since a string with an apostrophe in it is easier to protect with double quotes:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ find . -name "file-containing-can't" -exec grep "can't" '{}' \; -print
</syntaxhighlight>