How do I search for a string in a PHP file using `grep`?

Question

I am searching for a class declaration on a site with hundreds of PHP files. How can I do this in the current folder and subfolders using grep?

I tested cding to the folder and then something like

grep -r 'class MyClass' *.php

Answer 1

I'd recommend that you use something like ctags rather than do it with a grep. However, if you want to, you can do something like

 find <top level dir> -name \*.php | xargs grep "class MyClass"

This of course assumes that you have just a single space between class and myClass which might not be true. It's easy to change the regexp to look for any number of whitespaces though.

Answer 2

If you use -r, you probably want to just search the current directory:

grep -r 'class MyClass' .

Note the period on the end of the above.

What you told grep was that you wanted it to recursively search every *.php file or directory, which likely didn't include any directories.

But, if you ever have more than one space after class, you might want to allow more characters:

grep -r 'class *MyClass' .

Answer 3

grep -r 'class MyClass' *.php

will search through all the folders with names ending with .php

grep -r 'class MyClass' . | grep .php

will search for class MyClass in all files in all sub folders, then only return the ones that have .php in them.

Answer 4

find . -type f -name *.php -print -exec grep \"class MyClass\" {} \; will give you the contents of the line its found on as well as the path to the file.

Answer 5

Using the ever wonderful ack,

ack --php 'class MyClass'