Re: grep -R "include" *.c --- not working

[Eric Backus]

"Stepan Kasal" <address@hidden> wrote in message 
news:address@hidden
> Hello,
>
> > > find . -name '*.c' -print0 | xargs -r0 grep include /dev/null
> > >
> > > This ensures that grep always preceeds the match with a filename, even 
> > > if
> > > there's only one file found.
>
> since you already use two GNU-specific features (-r and -0 in xargs), you
> could as well adopt another one:
>
>    find . -name '*.c' -print0 | xargs -r0 grep -H include
> or
>    find . -name '*.c' -print0 | xargs -r0 grep --with-filename include
>
> The solution with /dev/null is a kludge.

Agreed, the /dev/null is a kludge.  But it works, and it's portable to 
essentially any unix-like system.  A person has to learn either /dev/null 
or -H about grep, to make it work reliably in this situation.  The /dev/null 
is more portable, so learn that one.  No point in learning both, save that 
room in your brain for something more essential, like another emacs 
keybinding or something...

(By comparison, there is no way that I know of, even with kludges, to do the 
equivalent of -r or -0.  To be honest, I'm not convinced that the -r is even 
necessary when running grep like this.)

--
Eric Backus