Custom shell function in .zshrc to search strings

#zsh #shell #bash

seek() {
  if [ "$1" != "" ]
  then
    grep -H -r --exclude-dir=node_modules "$1" * | less
  else
    echo "need to type in a string"
  fi
}

I use this function when I join an existing project and I need to get familiar with the code base. I got tired of typing in grep -H -r 'string' * | less so I created this little function to make the process quicker.

Now we just type in seek custom_method and a list of files will appear from the project that contain that method or whatever string you passed. I added a flag to exclude node_modules because usually that's not where you need to look and it could pull up irrelevant files.

This is helpful when searching file names is not enough. I'm pretty excited about this one. I hope it helps you out!