"grep" searches through text and returns matches according the the regular expression you provide it. "grep" is your friend.. Learn It, Use It, Love It! If you take the time to learn one command line tool in the Unix environment, let it be "grep". NEVER trust your eyes! They will lie to you, but "grep" won't.

Let's Play

show all of the lines in inittab that have getty on them

cat /etc/inittab | grep getty

find the matching text from all of the files in your home directory and below that contain your name

grep -ir duane ~/code/python/lib

find the filename from all of the files in your home directory and below that contain your name

grep -irl duane ~/code/python/lib