How to grep without hidden files?

Question

I have two different regular files: myscript2 and myscript3 with word 'dash' inside. I want to grep them, but because of '-r' addition to grep I got hidden files as well. I tried to use 'grep -v' after pipe to get rid of hidden files. I failed. Why? What to do to solve my problem?

$ ls
myscript2
myscript3
$ cat myscript2
dash
$ grep -r -l 'dash' | grep -v '^.*'

My question is not about specified file name, but all possible files. — Josef Klimuk, Jan 16 '18 at 07:33
All of those answers can adapted to cover that case as well. — muru, Jan 16 '18 at 07:34

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 16 '18 at 05:52

3

Try --exclude:

grep -R --exclude='.*' <pattern> <dir>

answered Jan 16 '18 at 05:52

thomasrutter

36,774

2

thomasrutter, II have tried. It shows hidden files again. – Josef Klimuk Jan 16 '18 at 06:00
@JosefKlimuk works fine for me. What version of grep and Ubuntu are you using? What was the exact command you tried? – muru Jan 16 '18 at 06:06
1

excluding .* seems to exclude all results if calling grep from same directory . – WalksB Jul 08 '22 at 23:57

How to grep without hidden files?

1 Answers1