How do I search for a string of text in all the files sitting inside folder and its subfolders?

I wish to use a grep search to find the string 'base64' in any/all php files in a folder (and its subfolders) saved on my mac's desktop. I'm not very experienced using the Terminal command line functions. I've written

grep -lr base64 *.php 

but this only finds the relevant php files in the folder, not its subfolders. What is the correct command to show every php file I'm looking for?

2 Answers

You could use the --include option of grep

grep -lr base64 --include=*.php 

Yup. Thanks @Clearquestionwithexamples

find . -iname "*.php" -exec grep -Hi base64 {} \;

That seems to be the answer to what you're looking for (search for "base64" in *.php files), and is based on some of the available answers in referenced resources.

If you have a directory that just has *.php files, you can use this even-easier syntax:

grep -iR base64

To just “show every php file I'm looking for” (and not bother with looking for “base64”), you can do that with simply:

find . -iname "*.php"