Question

I want to grep files that contain text "wp_" but do not contain text "wp3_". E.g. I’ve got a file with two strings:

wp_123

wp3_123

I try $ grep -lr wp_ ~/tmp | xargs grep -vl wp3_

It outputs this file name! But if I remove the linebreak, it’s working like I want, i.e. handles string "wp_123 wp3_123" correctly.

How to make it work with search conditions on different strings?

P.S. Sorry for kind of duplicate, but seems that nobody noticed my comment during last hour…

Answer 1

This should work

$ grep -lr 'wp_' ~/tmp | xargs grep -L 'wp3_'

The single quotes are not necessary in this case, but are a good habit to prevent pattern characters from being interpreted by the shell. In your original attempt, -vl means “print each file with at least one line that does not match”. Here, -L means “print each file with no lines that match”.