CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c
Coder10
Coder10

Reputation: 65

finding variable

Purpose: writing a script that takes two parameters (directory and c var) and searches all files with C extension in a directory.

Every line that contains the variable in the second parameter must be printed. The variable should also be matched exactly including capitalization and should be a whole word.

The filename should be printed preceded by the line with the variable

Any help would be appreciated.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 109

Answers (3)

Leon
Leon

Reputation: 12491

I have personally never used ack so can't comment, but grep is great for this

I used this command to look for all files containing the whole word "name" with extensions cpp and h in the directory "unisa".

grep -wnr "name" --include *.cpp --include *.h unisa

from the man pages

-w  Select only those lines containing matches that form whole words.
-n  Prefix each line of output with the 1-based line number within its input file. (you may not want this, but I always use it)
-r Read all files under each directory, recursively
--include Search only files whose base name matches GLOB

I ran the command in the example on a directory I have for all my university projects and this is a sample of the output

cos2614/assignment_1/question_1/question_1.cpp:15: "Enter your details in the format \"first name: surname: employee number\"");
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/customer.cpp:3:Customer::Customer(QString name, QString id)
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/customer.cpp:4:    : m_Name(name), m_ID(id), m_DeliveryAddress(), m_BillingAddress()
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/test.cpp:12:    QString name, id, address;
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/test.cpp:14:    cout << "Please enter your name: ";
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/test.cpp:16:    name = cin.readLine();
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/test.cpp:22:    Customer cust(name, id);
cos2614/assignment_1/question_2/customer.h:15:        Customer(QString name, QString id);
cos2614/assignment_1/question_5/static3.h:10:        Client(string name): m_Name(name), m_ID(s_SavedID++) { }

Upvotes: 0

John1024
John1024

Reputation: 113924

While grep is a general tool, there is a tool, called ack, that is specifically designed for searching source code. By default, it recursively searches directory trees. It already has built-in knowledge of which source file extensions are associated with which languages. For example, to search a directory tree for c files in which the name someName appears, use:

ack --cc '\bsomeName\b' /path/to/

Notes:

  • --cc tells it to search c-language files as identified by the extensions .c, .h. and .xs.

  • \bsomeName\b is the regex to search for. \b means word boundary. Use it if you want to prevent anothersomeName from matching. ack fully supports perl regular expressions.

  • Searches are recursive by default. Use -n if you don't want to descend into subdirectories.

  • If you don't like any of ack's defaults, it is extremely configurable.

On debian-like systems, ack was awkwardly renamed ack-grep to avoid conflict with a Kanji converter called ack. To install, run apt-get install ack-grep. For other systems, see How to install ack.

Upvotes: 2

chrisb2244
chrisb2244

Reputation: 3001

Here, you seem to want to use grep to search through all of your files in a directory.

Reading man grep will get you a long way with this, but it's particularly worth paying attention to its --include=GLOB and -r or --recursive options.

You can use the recursive flag to avoid the need for find, and then the --include= flag to specify only files ending with a certain extension.

Upvotes: 0

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