I need to find all
the instances of a given
string in the whole filesystem, because I don't remember
in which configuration files, script or any other programs I put it
and I need to update that
string with a new one.
I tried with
the following command
`grep -nr 'needle' / --exclude-dir=.svn | mail
[email protected] -s 'References on xxx'
If I run this command on a small directory it gives me
the output I need
in the form
/path1/:nn:line containing needle
/path2/:nn:line containing needle
where /path1
is the full path of
the file, nn
is the row containing
the needle
and last field
is the content of
the line.
However when I run
the command on
the root directory
the grep process hang after a while. I run this script about 8 hours ago
and even on a small filesystem (less than 5GB) it doesn't end
and if I run top or ps
the process seems sleeping
root 24909 0.0 0.1 3772 1520 pts/1 S+ Feb10 0:15 grep -nr needle / --exclude-dir=.svn
Why it doesn't end?
Is there any better way to do this (it's a one time job, I don't need to execute this more than once)
Thanks.
