grep for multiple strings in file on different lines (ie. whole file, not line based search)?

Solution 1:

You can use:

grep -l Dansk * | xargs grep -l Norsk | xargs grep -l Svenska

If you want also to find in hidden files:

grep -l Dansk .* | xargs grep -l Norsk | xargs grep -l Svenska

Solution 2:

Yet another way using just bash and grep:

For a single file 'test.txt':

  grep -q Dansk test.txt && grep -q Norsk test.txt && grep -l Svenska test.txt

Will print test.txt iff the file contains all three (in any combination). The first two greps don't print anything (-q) and the last only prints the file if the other two have passed.

If you want to do it for every file in the directory:

   for f in *; do grep -q Dansk $f && grep -q Norsk $f && grep -l Svenska $f; done

Solution 3:

grep –irl word1 * | grep –il word2 `cat -` | grep –il word3 `cat -`

• -i makes search case insensitive
• -r makes file search recursive through folders
• -l pipes the list of files with the word found
• cat - causes the next grep to look through the files passed to it list.