how to search a string in multiple files in unix

Question

I want to search a string in the directory (sub directories too) /www/mydirectory, the string is parcel. I have tried with the command grep -r "parcel". i got this from stackoverflow. But if i give this command, server is hanging up and displays nothing. Please help me in getting this.

Answer 1

Use this command

grep -nr "PARCEL" /var --color*

-n for printing line number within the file

-r searches recursively in sub-dirs as well

/var is the top-level path from which the search is done recursively in all the sub-dirs & files

--color highlights the grep'ed string in the output