grepgnubsdfile-globs

Using globs in GNU grep's path argument

BSD (Mac) grep allows for this command:

grep -n "FIXME" **/*.rb

But GNU grep forces me to specify at least a folder to start from:

grep -n "FIXME" {lib,spec}/**/*.rb

Is there a way to get this to behave like it does in BSD grep?

Solution

  • Switch to ack. It uses the recursive strategy by default, and comes with loads of tricky regexes for types of language files available as flags.

    For instance, writing:

    ack FIXME --ruby

    Will search the current directory recursively for anything that may be a Ruby file. This will work the same on Mac and Linux.