Grep or find to find a pattern

Question

I'm looking through a couple hundred files looking for the following string:

$v1=Name($v2[x1].$v3[x2].$v4[x3].$*v5[x4].)

grep -HREln "(x1)" . > foo
find . -type f | xargs grep -l 'x1' > foo

However the variable x1 changes from file to file. What I would like to do is search for the pattern:

$*=Name($*[*].$*[*].$*[*].$**[*].) 

regardless of the variable or white spaces. any assistance would be great.

Answer 1

Change every * to .* , put \\ before every $ , [ , ] , or literal . , and you're there!

find . -type f |
  xargs grep -l 'Name(\$.*\[.*\]\.\$.*\[.*\]\.\$.*\[.*\]\.\$.*\[.*\]\.)' > foo

Note: this will miss variations that span multiple lines, and does not take whitespace into account at all.