If you want the very fastest "find strings in files, especially code files", I've become a big fan of ag, "the silver searcher": https://github.com/ggreer/the_

If you want the very fastest "find strings in files, especially code files", I've become a big fan of ag, "the silver searcher": https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher In addition to all the tricks applied by GNU grep (such as Boyer-Moore), it also splits work among threads to take advantage of multi-core machines. Integrates with your favorite text editor, too!