Unix Command to List Files Containing String But *Not* Containing Another String

Unix Command to List files containing string but NOT containing another string

Try this:

grep -rl <string-to-match> | xargs grep -L <string-not-to-match>

Explanation: grep -lr makes grep recursively (r) output a list (l) of all files that contain <string-to-match>. xargs loops over these files, calling grep -L on each one of them. grep -L will only output the filename when the file does not contain <string-not-to-match>.

How do I find files that do not contain a given string pattern?

The following command gives me all the files that do not contain the pattern foo:

find .  -not  -ipath '.*svn*' -exec  grep  -H -E -o -c  "foo"  {} \; | grep 0

How to find all files containing specific text (string) on Linux?

Do the following:

grep -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e 'pattern'

-r or -R is recursive,
-n is line number, and
-w stands for match the whole word.
-l (lower-case L) can be added to just give the file name of matching files.
-e is the pattern used during the search

Along with these, --exclude, --include, --exclude-dir flags could be used for efficient searching:

This will only search through those files which have .c or .h extensions:
```
grep --include=\*.{c,h} -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
```
This will exclude searching all the files ending with .o extension:
```
grep --exclude=\*.o -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
```
For directories it's possible to exclude one or more directories using the --exclude-dir parameter. For example, this will exclude the dirs dir1/, dir2/ and all of them matching *.dst/:
```
grep --exclude-dir={dir1,dir2,*.dst} -rnw '/path/to/search/' -e "pattern"
```

This works very well for me, to achieve almost the same purpose like yours.

For more options, see man grep.

What is a Linux command to find files containing some strings but not another?

There's more than one way to do it. This should keep the total number of processes executed to a minimum:

find . -name \*.xml -print0          \   # List of *.xml files (NUL-terminated)
  | xargs -0 grep -Zli 'string[12]'  \   # is input to first grep, which sends (NUL-term'd)
  | xargs -0 grep -Li  'string[34]'      # file list to second grep

Thanks Matt Gibson for reminding us of the -Z flag to GNU grep.

How to find all files containing specific text (string) on Linux?

Do the following:

grep -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e 'pattern'

-r or -R is recursive,
-n is line number, and
-w stands for match the whole word.
-l (lower-case L) can be added to just give the file name of matching files.
-e is the pattern used during the search

Along with these, --exclude, --include, --exclude-dir flags could be used for efficient searching:

This will only search through those files which have .c or .h extensions:
```
grep --include=\*.{c,h} -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
```
This will exclude searching all the files ending with .o extension:
```
grep --exclude=\*.o -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
```
For directories it's possible to exclude one or more directories using the --exclude-dir parameter. For example, this will exclude the dirs dir1/, dir2/ and all of them matching *.dst/:
```
grep --exclude-dir={dir1,dir2,*.dst} -rnw '/path/to/search/' -e "pattern"
```

This works very well for me, to achieve almost the same purpose like yours.

For more options, see man grep.

Find all files with name containing string

Use find:

find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*string*" -print

It will find all files in the current directory (delete maxdepth 1 if you want it recursive) containing "string" and will print it on the screen.

If you want to avoid file containing ':', you can type:

find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*string*" ! -name "*:*" -print

If you want to use grep (but I think it's not necessary as far as you don't want to check file content) you can use:

ls | grep touch

But, I repeat, find is a better and cleaner solution for your task.

How to find text files not containing text on Linux?

The command you quote, ironically enough does exactly what you describe.
Test it!

echo "hello" > a
echo "bye" > b
grep -iL BYE a b

Says a only.

I think you may be confusing -L and -l

find . -print | xargs grep -iL "somestring"

is the inverse of

find . -print | xargs grep -il "somestring"

By the way, consider

find . -print0 | xargs -0 grep -iL "somestring"

Or even

grep -IRiL "somestring" .

Find files not containing search string

You could achieve this by something like

grep -L keyword $( find /start/path -type f )

You may need GNU grep for -L.

Unix Command to List Files Containing String But Not Containing Another String