---
title: Avoid ls piped to grep (prefer globs or find)
description: Datadog, the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring.
breadcrumbs: >-
  Docs > Datadog Security > Code Security > Static Code Analysis (SAST) > SAST
  Rules > Avoid ls piped to grep (prefer globs or find)
---

# Avoid ls piped to grep (prefer globs or find)

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## Metadata{% #metadata %}

**ID:** `bash-code-quality/avoid-ls-grep-pipelines`

**Language:** Bash

**Severity:** Notice

**Category:** Code Style

## Description{% #description %}

Parsing `ls` output is fragile (locale, columns, odd filenames). Piping `ls` to `grep` is a common anti-pattern. Prefer shell globs, `find`, or tools that work on paths instead of `ls` text.

## Non-Compliant Code Examples{% #non-compliant-code-examples %}

```bash
#!/bin/bash
ls | grep foo
ls -la | grep '\.txt$'
ls |& grep foo
```

## Compliant Code Examples{% #compliant-code-examples %}

```bash
#!/bin/bash
ls
printf '%s\n' *.txt
find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.log' -print
ls | something | grep
```
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