The following tips and tricks can be used when debugging from the command line.

Grep'ing Source Code

The grep tool allows you to efficiently find references to strings in the
current folder or recursively, such as looking for every reference to a
specific function name or variable in your codebase.

Grep recursively for a partial string

To perform a recursive search for a partial string enter:

$ grep -rn "./" -e "SEARCH_PATTERN"

• r means recursive
• n means show line numbers
• e is the string to search for (SEARCH_PATTERN in this case)

This will return a reference to any instance starting with SEARCH_PATTERN,
including the specific line number.

> NOTE: This search is case-sensitive. Adding the i flag will make
the search case insensitive.

Grep recursively for an exact string

To perform a recursive search for an exact match of an entire string enter:

$ grep -rnw "./" -e "SEARCH_PATTERN"

• w means whole word

This will return a reference to any instances of SEARCH_PATTERN.

Grep recursively for a string ignoring the case

If you wish the search to be case insensitive you can also add the -i
argument, as shown below:

$ grep -rni "./" -e "SeArCh_PaTtErN"

• i means case insensitive (default is case sensitive searching)

This would return 'SearchPattern' or 'SEARCHPATTERN' as valid matches.

Grep recursively with specific file types

If you wish to restrict your search to a specific file type, you can use the
--include flag as follows:

$ grep --include=\*.{c,h} -rnw "./" -e "SEARCH_PATTERN"

This will only search files ending in .c or .h

You can also exclude certain file types with the --exclude flag:

$ grep --exclude=*.o -rnw "./" -e "SEARCH_PATTERN"

This will exclude all files ending in .o from the search.