Write output out of grep into a file on Linux?

Question

find . -name "*.php" | xargs grep -i -n "searchstring" >output.txt

Here I am trying to write data into a file which is not happening...

Answer 1

How about appending results using >>?

find . -name "*.php" | xargs grep -i -n "searchstring" >> output.txt

I haven't got a Linux box with me right now, so I'll try to improvize.

the xargs grep -i -n "searchstring" bothers me a bit.

Perhaps you meant xargs -I {} grep -i "searchstring" {}, or just xargs grep -i "searchstring"?

Since -n as grep's argument will give you only number lines, I doubt this is what you needed.

This way, your final code would be

find . -name "*.php" | xargs grep -i "searchstring" >> output.txt

Answer 2

find . -name "*.php" -exec grep -i -n "function" {} \;  >output.txt

But you won't know what file it came from. You might want:

find . -name "*.php" -exec grep -i -Hn "function" {} \;  >output.txt

instead.