How do I find all files containing specific text on Linux

Do the following:

grep -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e 'pattern'
  • -r or -R is recursive,
  • -n is line number, and
  • -w stands for match the whole word.
  • -l (lower-case L) can be added to just give the file name of matching files.

Along with these, --exclude, --include, --exclude-dir or --include-dir flags could be used for efficient searching:

  • This will only search through those files which have .c or .h extensions:
    grep --include=\*.{c,h} -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
    
  • This will exclude searching all the files ending with .o extension:
    grep --exclude=*.o -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
    
  • Just like exclude files, it’s possible to exclude/include directories through –exclude-dir and –include-dir parameter. For example, this will exclude the dirs dir1/, dir2/ and all of them matching *.dst/:
    grep --exclude-dir={dir1,dir2,*.dst} -rnw '/path/to/somewhere/' -e "pattern"
    

    This works very well for me, to achieve almost the same purpose like yours.

For more options check man grep.