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Development Tools Console Foundations Environment and Redirection Pipes and Redirection

How does grep know what file to look in when we do not specify a file?

Does its search limit to the current directory? would it search all the files in that directory? And could I use it to search files in another directory?

2 Answers

Ken Alger
STAFF
Ken Alger
Treehouse Teacher

Jess;

I guess I don't fully understand your question. When you don't pass grep a file name it "looks" for input elsewhere, for example from the standard input (keyboard) as is shown in the course video around the 2:05 time mark.

Is that what you are asking?

In terms of reading files in other directories, grep will search wherever you point it in the format:

$ grep (search term) (file name)

So, if you wanted to search for a file name outside your current directory, you would just point it there.

Make any sense?

Ken

Pavlo Kochubei
Pavlo Kochubei
15,009 Points

At 2:40, the instructor types in the following:

$ grep hello

I guess, the first question was referring to this instance