# How to avoid grep warning messages **URL:** \ **Category:** Shell Programming and Scripting\ **Created:** [March 18, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613 "2009-03-18T15:11:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shellscripter](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/shellscripter/32/6_22734026db12803ebb3e059622ac3534.png) [@shellscripter](https://community.unix.com/u/shellscripter)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613/1 "2009-03-18T15:11:00Z")
Hi All, When i try to grep for a patern in an directory, I am getting warning like "No such file or directory". Anyway script is working as expected. but i need to avoid this warning message. Pass="`find . -type f | xargs grep 'test result - pass' | wc -l`" grep: ./results/6052278-1-717520-HFR\_QFTS\_ALL.\_\_taskid2.isis\_test.Beginning: No such file or directory grep: ISIS: No such file or directory grep: config: No such file or directory grep: load: No such file or directory grep: ./results/6052278-1-717520-HFR\_QFTS\_ALL.\_\_taskid2.isis\_test.Beginning: No such file or directory grep: interface%2Fbasic: No such file or directory grep: pings%2Ftraceroute%2Fcontroller: No such file or directory grep: check: No such file or directory Thanks, Parkkavan ---
**Author:** ![Franklin52](https://community.unix.com/user_avatar/community.unix.com/franklin52/32/500_2.png) [@Franklin52](https://community.unix.com/u/Franklin52)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613/2 "2009-03-18T15:35:42Z")
Redirect the output of stderr to /dev/null: ```nohighlight find . -type f | xargs grep 'test result - pass' 2>/dev/null | wc -l ``` ---
**Author:** ![shellscripter](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/shellscripter/32/6_22734026db12803ebb3e059622ac3534.png) [@shellscripter](https://community.unix.com/u/shellscripter)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613/3 "2009-03-18T15:41:21Z")
Thanks Franklin. It works fine.. Can you tellme "2" mean in 2\>/dev/null. Thanks, Parkkavan ---
**Author:** ![wireonfire](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/wireonfire/32/6_22734026db12803ebb3e059622ac3534.png) [@wireonfire](https://community.unix.com/u/wireonfire)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613/4 "2009-03-18T15:58:15Z")
2 by default is the file pointer for the error messages, 1 is that for stand output. Both go to screen by default. In this case you redirect error to /dev/null so you don't see them. ---
**Author:** ![shellscripter](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/shellscripter/32/6_22734026db12803ebb3e059622ac3534.png) [@shellscripter](https://community.unix.com/u/shellscripter)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613/5 "2009-03-18T16:01:20Z")
Thanks wireonfire for the explanation. 🙂 Regards, Parkkavan ---
**Author:** ![Mumford](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/mumford/32/6_22734026db12803ebb3e059622ac3534.png) [@Mumford](https://community.unix.com/u/Mumford)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/how-to-avoid-grep-warning-messages/235613/6 "2009-03-18T16:12:42Z")
You're seeing this because the find command passes the filenames it finds as a list of words separated by spaces. The problem is some of the files have spaces in the names. If you're on Linux or otherwise using GNU find & GNU xargs, you can use: ```nohighlight find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep 'test result - pass' | wc -l ``` 'print0' tells find to use \0 as the separator instead of space, and the -0 option to xargs tells it to accept \0 as the separator.