Linux search text string from .bz2 files recursively in subdirectories

Question

I have a case where multiple .bz2 files are situated in subdirectories. And I want to search for a text, from all files, using bzcat and grep command linux commands.

I am able to search one-one file by using the following command:

bzcat <filename.bz2> | grep -ia 'text string' | less

But I now I need to do the above for all files in subdirectories.

Outshine

h try this bzcat <filename.bz2> | grep -ira 'text string' | less – Ha

Answer 1

You can use bzgrep instead of bzcat and grep. This is faster.

To grep recursively in a directory tree use find:

find -type f -name '*.bz2' -execdir bzgrep "pattern" {} \;

find is searching recursively for all files with the *.bz2 extension and applies the command specified with -execdir to them.

Dna

Good one! Didn't know about bzgrep, so I am deleting my approach. – Bristletail

I just knowed about zgrep, so I tried man bzgrep. thx! :) – Dna

Thanks hek2mgl, I am running the command and will let you know of the result. The files I am searching from are too big. – Outshine

Just to confirm something. Do I put my search text string in "pattern", replacing pattern with my string? – Outshine

@user3041655 yes. replace pattern with your actual grep pattern – Dna

Thanks. So if I want to less(view) the result, how do I modify the command? Because bzgrep is not installed in my server, I had to replace it with bzcat. When running the modified command, it ran until the end by never showed any matching string. And I know the string is in the file. – Outshine

This is the comand: find -type -file -name 'SystemOut.log.bz2' execdir bzcat "62123456" {} \; – Outshine

It should be: find -type f -name 'SystemOut.log.bz2' -execdir bzcat "62123456" {} \; – Dna

Thanks hek2mgl. With your assistance, I finally got it working with the following command: find . -type f -name 'SystemOut.log.bz2' -exec bzcat {} \; | grep -ia '3861449' | less – Outshine

Works. Is it possible to output the file name and maybe line as well? – Durwood

Answer 2

Just try to use:

bzgrep --help
grep through bzip2 files

Usage: bzgrep [grep_options] pattern [files]

For example, I need grep information from list of files by number 1941974:

'billing_log_1.bz'
'billing_log_2.bz'
'billing_log_3.bz'
'billing_log_4.bz'
'billing_log_5.bz'

What can I do?

bzgrep '1941974' billing_log_1

Cuttle

The question was how to grep recursively, bzgrep does not do it by default. – Butchery

Answer 3

There are several methods:

bzgrep regexp $(find -name \*.bz2)

This method will work if number of the found files is not very big (and they have no special characters in the pathes). Otherwise you better use this one:

find -name \*.bz2 -exec bzgrep regexp {} /dev/null \;

Please note /dev/null in the second method. You use it to make bzgrep print the filename, where the regexp was found.

Protozoal

Answer 4

Continuous your code with fixes by bzcat:

find . -type f -name "*.bz2" |while read file
do 
    bzcat $file | grep -ia 'text string' | less
done

Tanjatanjore

Yes, you need save it in a bash file, such as a.sh, then give the execute permission by : chmod +x a.sh – Tanjatanjore