A Unix question: grep command

Question

Hi all,
I have a directory which contains more directories, and each directory has more directories inside, which in turn may or may not contain Java files. I need to use the grep command in the way that from the first directory goes into the directories recursively, finds the Java files and tell me what files have the PATTERN= "Basic Import Validation".
I used the grep like this, but guess its wrong since haven't received any response so far. Can sb. please tell me if I've used the command correctly or how should I change it? Any help is greatly appreciated.
dir> grep -r --include="Basic Import Validation" *.java                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Answer 1

I gues the reason this isn't working for you isthat
-r means "process all subdirectories of any
directories listed in the command line args."
grep never sees the *.java that you supply. Theshell
grabs that and expands it to list all the .javafiles
in the pwd.If you can, would you please explain a little more,
what you meant by above?
grep whatever *.java When you type that command, your shell (bash, zsh, ksh, tcsh, etc.) is the program that receives that string on its standard input--like Java's System.in. The shell sees *.java and expands it into a list of all the .java files in the current directory. Then the shell invokes grep, and passes on the list of those java files.
But the list of .java files in the pwd has nothing to do with any java files that might be in subdirs.
If you use the -r arg, it seems that, in the list of "files" (where you put *.java), if any of those "files" are in fact directories, then -r means to look in files in that dir and its subdirs, rather than treating that arg as a file to examine.
So you'd put . (dot) as your current dir, and then use the --include to tell grep which files to process and which to ignore.
I'm sure about the shell expanding *.java. I'm not completely sure about my interpretation of -r and --include, but I'm pretty confident that's right.
As you said, the way I used grep, didn't return any
result. Your solution however, gave me results and
found the Java files containing the PATTERN. Thanks a
lot.You're welcome.
If you're still interested, it's probably worth trying out my slight modification to your original solution. If it works, it's a bit cleaner and simpler.