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• Finding all files with specific text in them

Bash Bits are small examples and tips for Bash Scripts. This bash bit shows you how to find all files containing specific text, and how to remove them.

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Finding all files with specific text in them

For text news I convert news articles to plain text with readability. Recently one of the sites I convert changed their HTML, causing the parsing to fail. I fixed that in the parser, but had over 200 failed parsed articles. I wanted to remove them all. They all contain the following string:

Wij willen graag weten in welke omgeving u woont

Navigate to the folder where you want to search (recursivly):

cd /var/gopher

Search for all .txt files which have the string in them. grep -l will only write the filename of the file that contains the string.

find -iname "*.txt" | xargs grep -l "Wij willen graag weten in welke omgeving"

This will give you a list of files:

./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190428T0924_Inbraak_bij_super_Barger_Oosterveld.txt
./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190428T1036_Hoofdprijs_Staatsloterij_valt_in_Borger_Odoorn.txt
./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190501T1304_50Plus_en_Sterk_Lokaal_samen_verder_in_de_Staten.txt
./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190504T1657_Live__Dodenherdenking_Westerbork__afgesloten_.txt
./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190503T0557_Drankrijder_A28_is_rijbewijs_kwijt.txt

Check them by hand, and if you're sure you want to remove them, use the following command:

find -iname "*.txt" | xargs grep -l "Wij willen graag weten in welke omgeving" | awk '{print "rm "$1}' | bash

Tags: bash , bash-bits , find , grep , remove , shell , snippets