grep recursive

[Pitcher, Michael]

I have a path with hidden directories (.foo):

server112-test/$ls -a -R .
.:
.  ..  bar  .foo  t1

./bar:
.  ..  .foo  t2

./bar/.foo:
.  ..  t4

./.foo:
.  ..  t3

As you can see, ls -a shows all files.
Suppose I want to search recursively for a string ("test") in a file. Normally 
I would expect the same rules to apply as for "ls" - ignore hidden files. But 
grep doesn't work that way:

server112-test/$grep -R test *
bar/.foo/t4:test4
bar/t2:test2
t1:test1

Hmm. (Also, why did it skip ./.foo? Hmm.)

Now, suppose I want to recursively search all files, skipping the files in the 
hidden directories, ".foo".  Ok, this works for "./.foo" but - oops - not 
bar/.foo:

server112-test/$grep -R --exclude=.foo test *
bar/.foo/t4:test4
bar/t2:test2
t1:test1
server112-test/$

The machine in question:
Linux version 2.6.9-22.ELsmp (address@hidden) (gcc version 3.4.4 20050721 (Red 
Hat 3.4.4-2)) #1 SMP Mon Sep 19 18:00:54 EDT 2005
Linux server112  2.6.9-22.ELsmp #1 SMP Mon Sep 19 18:00:54 EDT 2005 x86_64 
x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

--
Mike Pitcher
address@hidden
919-281-1572