grep for string without another string before it

Question

I have found lots of guides for ignoring lines with comments or matching for one string but not another, but I have not found what I need. I want to grep recursively for files containing the string "indexes" (case insensitive i think, it's apache conf) but not a "#" BEFORE it.

It should match this:

Options Indexes
Options +Indexes
Options Indexes MultiViews
Options Indexes # Comment
Options Indexes # Indexes

But not this:

Options MultiViews # Indexes
# Indexes yadayada Indexes

I'm using it in a script on the form:

if grep -re "[^#]*ndexes" $DIR1/httpd.conf $DIR2/http; then
    echo Do not use Indexes
fi

The above is one of my efforts, but I cannot get it to work.

Answer 1

Given this input:

Options Indexes
Options +Indexes
Options Indexes MultiViews
Options Indexes # Comment
Options Indexes # Indexes
Options MultiViews # Indexes
# Indexes yadayada Indexes

This appears to work:

$ grep '^[^#]*Indexes' input
Options Indexes
Options +Indexes
Options Indexes MultiViews
Options Indexes # Comment
Options Indexes # Indexes
$ grep -v '^[^#]*Indexes' input
Options MultiViews # Indexes
# Indexes yadayada Indexes

To dissect the regular expression:

• ^ - Beginning of the line
• [^#]* - Zero or more of any character that is not an octothorpe
• Indexes - The literal string Indexes

To put it in the context of your script:

if grep -rl -- '^[^#]*Indexes' "$DIR1/httpd.conf" "$DIR2/http"; then
    echo "The above-listed files use an 'Indexes' directive."
fi