I need to find all the instances of a given string in the whole filesystem, because I don't remember in which configuration files, script or any other programs I put it and I need to update that string with a new one.

I tried with the following command

`grep -nr 'needle' / --exclude-dir=.svn | mail [email protected] -s 'References on xxx'

If I run this command on a small directory it gives me the output I need in the form

/path1/:nn:line containing needle
/path2/:nn:line containing needle

where /path1 is the full path of the file, nn is the row containing the needle and last field is the content of the line.

However when I run the command on the root directory the grep process hang after a while. I run this script about 8 hours ago and even on a small filesystem (less than 5GB) it doesn't end and if I run top or ps the process seems sleeping

root 24909 0.0 0.1 3772 1520 pts/1 S+ Feb10 0:15 grep -nr needle / --exclude-dir=.svn

Why it doesn't end? Is there any better way to do this (it's a one time job, I don't need to execute this more than once)

Thanks.