how to use grep for specific files?

Question

for example I type

ls -altr | grep "23 Dec"

so it will show files for 23 Dec only and I want to use grep for them, like

ls -altr | grep "23 Dec" | xargs grep -l "some_string"

but this doesn't work)

How to do that?

@warl0ck Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.8 (Tikanga) 2.6.18-308.1.1.el5

ixtmixilix · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-25 06:34:38Z

up vote 5 down vote accepted

If you want to use your way, try maybe:

ls -altr | grep "23 Dec" | awk '{print $9}' | xargs -i grep -l "some_string" {}

or with find I would do:

find . -type f -newermt 2012-12-23 ! -newermt 2012-12-24 -exec grep -l "some_string" {} \;

In the find command, don't forget the escaped semicolon. Also note that find works much the same way as xargs when used with the -exec option.

edited Dec 25 '12 at 6:34

answered Dec 25 '12 at 6:27

ixtmixilix
2,577836

	doesn't work :( `grep: invalid option -- - Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]... Try`grep --help' for more information.` – VextoR Dec 25 '12 at 6:31
	yes, you need awk to print the right column that contains the filename, if you want to use xargs. – ixtmixilix Dec 25 '12 at 6:38
	when I use find it says: invalid predicate -newermt – VextoR Dec 25 '12 at 6:43
	did you copy and paste the command above? it works fine for me. also, what OS are you running and what version of find are you using (`find -version`). in my case, i'm using `find (GNU findutils) 4.4.2` – ixtmixilix Dec 25 '12 at 7:40
	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.8 (Tikanga) 2.6.18-308.1.1.el5 GNU find version 4.2.27 – VextoR Dec 25 '12 at 7:43

warl0ck · Answer 2 · 2012-12-25 06:25:45Z

up vote 1 down vote

If you were trying to find some files, that was modified on a specific date,

there would be no need for pipe, (ls uses modify time by default)

find . -type f -newermt 2012-12-23 ! -newermt 2012-12-24 -iname '*some_string*'

answered Dec 25 '12 at 6:25

warl0ck
10.8k11166

it says:

find . -type f -newermt 2012-12-24 ! -newermt 2012-12-25 -iname '*50424876*'
find: invalid predicate

-newermt'` – VextoR Dec 25 '12 at 6:33

2 Answers