Error: "grep: Argument list too long"

Question

I am trying to run the following command, but gets argument too long error. Can you help?.

HOST# grep -rl 'pattern' /home/*/public_html/*
-bash: /bin/grep: Argument list too long

Is there a way to override this error and grep the pattern matching files I want in all users public_html directory. There are around 500+ users in the same server.

Solution

Use find

find /home/*/public_html -type f -exec grep -l 'pattern' {} +

The + modifier makes it group the filenames in manageable chunks.

However, you can do it with grep -r. The arguments to this should be the directory names, not filenames.

grep -rl 'pattern' /home/*/public_html

This will just have 500+ arguments, not thousands of filenames.