Stop Search param in directories by grep immediately after param match

Question

hi friends I use the following command to find under /var some param in my script

grep -R "param" /var/* 2>/dev/null |grep -wq "param"

my problem is that: after grep find the param in file grep continue to search until all searches under /var/* will completed

How to perform stop immediately after grep match the param word

For example when I run the: grep -R "param" /var/* 2>/dev/null |grep -wq "param"

grep find the param after one second.

But grep continue to Search other same param on other files and its take almost 30 seconds

How to stop the grep immediately after param match?

THX

Answer 1

you can use grep -m 1 to stop after the first match

Answer 2

This way:

grep -R "param" /var/* 2>/dev/null |grep -wq "param" | head -n 1

Answer 3

If you are using GNU grep, try this:

  -m, --max-count=NUM       stop after NUM matches

Answer 4

grep has a -m, --max-count option:

$ grep -R "param" /var/* 2>/dev/null |grep -wq -m1 "param"

Questions: why the double grep? why try to expand with * if you are making grep recursive? consider also -s to silent annoying error messages (I'd recommend alto to use -n to print matching line, but for the -q it seems you want no output):

$ grep -qsRw -m1 "param" /var