Here is the code at the bash shell. How is the file mask supposed to be specified, if not this way? I expected both commands to find the search expression, but it's not happening. In this example, I know in advance that I prefer to restrict the search to python source code files only, because unqualified searches are silly time wasters.
So, this works as expected:
grep -rni '/home/ga/projects' -e 'def Pr(x,u,v)'
/home/ga/projects/anom/anom.py:27:def Pr(x,u,v): blah, blah, ...
but this won't work:
grep --include=\*.{py} -rni '/home/ga/projects' -e 'def Pr(x,u,v)'
I'm using GNU grep version 2.16.
--include=\*.{py} looks like a broken attempt to use brace expansion (an unquoted {...} expression).
However, for brace expansion
to occur in bash (and ksh and zsh), you must either have:
a list of at least 2 items, separated with ,; e.g. {py,txt}, which expands to 2 arguments, py and txt.
or, a range of items formed from two end points, separated with ..; e.g., {1..3}, which expands to 3 arguments, 1, 2, and 3.
Thus, with a single item, simply do not use brace expansion:
--include=\*.py
If you did have multiple extensions to consider, e.g., *.py as well as *.pyc files, here's a robust form that illustrates the underlying shell features:
'--include=*.'{py,pyc}
Here:
{...} contains a 2-item list.{...} directly follows the literal (single-quoted) string --include=*., the results of the brace expansion include the literal part.grep, with the following literal content:
--include=*.py--include=*.pyc