Question

Suppose I have a collection of files like this:

echo -e "apple\n cherry" >> f1.txt; 
echo -e "grape\n strawberry" >> f2.txt; 
echo -e "orange\n cherry" >> f3.txt; 

And I want to find each file that has the word “cherry” in it. I can do this:

ls *.txt | xargs cat | grep cherry

But this just returns the two lines that match from f1 and f3, without showing the “source” files, like so:

cherry
cherry

I’d like is to see the files where these matches came from—something like this:

f1.txt ->  cherry 
f3.txt ->  cherry

Is there a way to do this simply from the command line?

Answer 1

jcomeau@intrepid:/tmp$ echo -e "apple\n cherry" >> f1.txt; 
jcomeau@intrepid:/tmp$ echo -e "grape\n strawberry" >> f2.txt; 
jcomeau@intrepid:/tmp$ echo -e "orange\n cherry" >> f3.txt; 
jcomeau@intrepid:/tmp$ grep cherry *txt
f1.txt: cherry
f3.txt: cherry