How can I open a file that results from grep?

Question

I often grep a bunch of files to find a line, and then grep returns one result. Rather than copying and pasting the filename into a new command, I'd like to be able to open that one result with an editor. Something like: grep foo | vim. Is there a way to do that in BASH?

Answer 1

Use grep -l to just get the filename of the matching file and not the matching text, then combine it with vim:

vim "$(grep -l some_pattern file_names)"

Answer 2

You can use quickfix or errorfile feature in vim:

$ grep -n foo * > /tmp/foo.list
$ vim -q /tmp/foo.list

Vim will open the first file in /tmp/foo.list and place the cursor directly in the line where foo was found. You can go to the next instance using :cn and previous instance using :cp.

Side note: If you are already using vim or gvim, then I would suggest using its inbuilt grep functionality. Read :help vimgrep for more information.

Answer 3

For search in project no need to leave vim with Fugitive

autocmd QuickFixCmdPost *grep* cwindow

Below you can see example of :Ggrep config

Answer 4

EDIT: After reading your comment, I realize I didn't understand the question initially. Here is a simple script which takes your search term as an argument and prompts for the path to search. If the result is found in only one file, it opens the file for editing at the location of the search result.

#!/bin/bash

SRCHTRM="$1"

read -p "Where to search: " SRCHPATH

FILEFOUND=$(grep "$SRCHTRM" $SRCHPATH)
FILEFOUNDCNT=$(grep "$SRCHTRM" $SRCHPATH | wc -l)

FILEAWK=$(echo "$FILEFOUND" | awk -F":" '{ print $1 }')

if [ "$FILEFOUNDCNT" -eq "1" ];then
    vi +/"$SRCHTRM" "$FILEAWK"
else
    echo "$1 was found in more than one file"
fi

Answer 5

@devnull got the answer right in this comment:

You were rather close, simply tell vim to read from STDIN:

grep foo | vim -

Answer 6

To expand on Anthon's answer for a case where you have more than one match, it may be helpful in some cases to use head -1 (from this answer) to select only the first result: vim "$(grep -l STRING FILES|head -1)"

Answer 7

If you are performing a long command that has grep somewhere in the middle of it you can also do

vim `command1 | grep whatever | awk '{do_something_else}'`