Linux search for word and show entire line

Open the file in a script format and then search with the keyword which you want to find as follows.

$vi <logfilename>
     &
:/search

You can use grep to show matching lines and less as a pager:

grep 'Nov 12 2012' /path/to/logfile | less

Type 'space' at the end of each page to advance to the next screen of results.

You can use grep as follows:

grep 'Nov 12 2012' file_to_search.log > search_results.log

Some explanations:

• grep is the name of the command / tool used for searching patterns
• 'Nov 12 2012': immediately after grep and separated by at least 1 space, you specify the pattern you want to search for
• file_to_search.log: as the last argument to grep here, you specify the file(s) you want to search for
• > search_results.log: The > means output redirection. Here it means "write the output from this command to a file called search_results.log. If the file exists already, overwrite it completely.

After getting the output, you can view the results with a text editor of your choice, or with less, so use any of the following:

less search_results.log
gedit search_results.log
emacs search_results.log
vim search_results.log

grep --after-context=5 --before-context=10 'Nov 12 2012' yourfile.log

That'll show each line that contains your date text, as well as 10 lines of text BEFORE the line that matched, and 5 lines AFTER the line that matched.