Search recursively in text files in a directory with java ?.

Question

I need to search a text in all the files of a directory and subdirectorys any clever idea ?

Answer 1

Use the org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils.iterateFiles() method from Apache commons-io

From the javadoc:

Allows iteration over the files in a given directory (and optionally its subdirectories) which match an array of extensions.

For example:

Iterator iter =  FileUtils.iterateFiles(directory, 
    new String[]{"txt","java"}, true);

while(iter.hasNext()) {
    File file = (File) iter.next();
    searchInFile(file);
}

Answer 2

Try a class with a recursive method something like this:

public class Searcher {

    private String toFind, toReplace;
    // whatever other info you need

    public void searchInTextFiles(File dir) {
        File[] a = dir.list();
        for (File f : a) {
            if (f.isDirectory()) {
                searchInTextFiles(f);
            } else if (f.name().endsWith(".txt")) {
                searchInFile(f);
            }
        }
    }

    private void searchInFile(File f) {
        // do whatever you need to do on f using fields from this class
    }
}

Answer 3

//edit u have to define CheckFile funct...

void Found(String dir,Vector flist){
File srchdir(dir);
File[] listf=listFiles();
    for(int i=0;i<srchdir.listf.length;i++){
        if(listf[i].isDirectory()){ Found(dir+"/"+listf[i].getName(),flist); 
        }else{ if(CheckFile(listf[i])) flist.add(dir+"/"+listf[i].getName()); }
    }
}


Vector Found(String dir){
File srchdir(dir);
Vector flist=new Vector();
File[] listf=listFiles();
    for(int i=0;i<srchdir.listf.length;i++){
        if(listf[i].isDirectory()){ Found(dir+"/"+listf[i].getName(),flist); 
        }else{ if(CheckFile(listf[i])) flist.add(dir+"/"+listf[i].getName()); }
    } 
    return flist;
}

Answer 4

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("grep", "-r", <searchText>);