# bash tip: find and grep through files

> Master the bash command line to efficiently locate files containing any specific string using powerful grep and find techniques.

Author: [Guillaume Laforge](https://glaforge.dev/) | Published: 2012-03-29 | Topics: geek, tips, bash | Canonical: https://glaforge.dev/posts/2012/03/29/bash-tip-find-and-grep-through-files/


It happens once in a while that I want to find all files containing a certain string. I know command-line tools such as grep, cat, and find, but I never remember the right combination to achieve that task. So as to remember and reference it later, I write this small blog post to remind me how to do it:

```bash
find . -type f -exec grep YOURSTRING /dev/null {} \;
```

The `find .` part will search from the current directory (and all its subdirectories), `- type f` to search for files (not directories or links, etc), `-exec` to use the grep command to find through the files, with YOURSTRING as query string, /dev/null to throw away the errors you don't care about, and `{}` is the current file to search into with grep.

**Update:** a simple approach proposed in the comments is:

```bash
grep -r YOURSTRING \*
```