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Goal: How to search for a file, by name, across a hierarchy of folders.

Searching for Files: find

Let us look at a folder with many subfolders and files.

[]$ cd ~/intro_to_linux
[intro_to_linux]$ ls
clusters  data  software.csv
[intro_to_linux]$ ls -R
.:
clusters  data  Intro_to_linux.pdf  software.csv  vegatables.txt  workshop_all.txt  workshop_me.txt
./clusters:
beartooth.html  loren.html  teton.html  wildiris.html
./data:
2021  2022  2023  dd.tx
./data/2021:
Apr  Nov  Sep
./data/2021/Apr:
20210403.txt  20210427.txt  20210428.txt

Searching for Files: find

./data/2021/Nov:
20211114.txt  20211115.txt  20211116.txt  hello.txt
./data/2021/Sep:
20210908.txt  20210921.txt
./data/2022:
Dec  Feb  Hello.csv  Jul  Jun
./data/2022/Dec:
20221207.txt  20221220.txt  20221230.txt  20221231.txt
./data/2022/Feb:
20220203.txt  20220223.txt
./data/2022/Jul:
20220720.txt  20220722.txt  20220723.TX
...

Searching for Files: find

Command

Description

find

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]
default path is the current directory; default expression is -print
expression may consist of: operators, options, tests, and actions:
...
EXPRESSION
       The  part  of the command line after the list of starting points is the expression.  This is a
       kind of query specification describing how we match files and what we do
...
  TESTS
    ...
    -name pattern
      Base of file name (the path with the leading directories removed) matches shell pattern pattern.
    ...
    -iname pattern
       Like -name, but the match is case insensitive.
    ...

Examples

[]$ cd ~/intro_to_linux/
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name 20230121.txt
./data/2023/Jan/20230121.txt
# Check that this file is within the returned location.
[intro_to_linux]$ ls data/2023/Jan/
20230102.txt  20230108.txt  20230115.txt  20230121.txt
# Nothing returned – no file exists called “20230120.txt”
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name 20230120.txt
[arcc-t05@blog1 intro_to_linux]$
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name README.txt
./data/2021/README.txt
# find is case–sensitive: use –iname option
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -iname README.txt
./data/2021/README.txt
./data/2022/readme.txt
./data/2023/ReadMe.txt

Examples

# Use wildcards to find all files with the postfix .csv:
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "*.csv"
./software.csv
./data/2022/Hello.csv
# Find any files/folders that contain the string “dec”
[arcc-t05@blog1 intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "*dec*"
./data/2022/Dec/2022_dec_01.txt
[arcc-t05@blog1 intro_to_linux]$ find . -iname "*dec*"
./data/2022/Dec
./data/2022/Dec/2022_dec_01.txt
# Find only folders.
[arcc-t05@blog1 intro_to_linux]$ find . -type d -iname "*dec*"
./data/2022/Dec
# Find only files
[arcc-t05@blog1 intro_to_linux]$ find . -type f -iname "*dec*"
./data/2022/Dec/2022_dec_01.txt

Exercises

Questions:

  1. What do we notice about some of the find command options?

  2. Find any files that contain the string “hello”, regardless of case, within their filename.

  3. Find any folders or files that contain the string “feb” regardless of case.

    1. Can you list only the folders?

  4. Find any files that have the postfix “tx” – must be lowercase.

Answers (1, 2)

1: What do we notice about some of the find command options?

  • That some of the single dash options (-name) are similar to long-names and not single letters.

2: Find any files that contain the string “hello”, regardless of case, within their filename.

[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "hello“
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "hello.*"
./data/2021/Nov/hello.txt
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -iname "hello.*"
./data/2021/Nov/hello.txt
./data/2022/Hello.csv
./data/2023/Mar/HELLO.txt

Answers (3)

3: Find any folders or files that contain the string “feb” regardless of case.

  • Can you list only the folders?

[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name feb
./data/2021/feb
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -iname feb
./data/2021/feb
./data/2023/Feb
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -iname "*feb*"
./data/2021/feb
./data/2021/feb/february_01_2021.tx
./data/2022/February
./data/2023/Feb
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -type d -iname "*feb*"
./data/2021/feb
./data/2022/February
./data/2023/Feb

Answers (4)

4: Find any files that have the postfix “tx” – must be lowercase.

[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "tx"
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "*tx*"
./data/2021/README.txt
./data/2021/Nov/20211115.txt
./data/2021/Nov/hello.txt
./data/2021/Nov/20211114.txt
…
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "*tx"
./data/dd.tx
./data/2021/feb/february_01_2021.tx
./data/2023/Jan/texttx
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -name "*.tx"
./data/dd.tx
./data/2021/feb/february_01_2021.tx

Answers (4)

# dd.tx is actually a folder.
# Notices the ’d’ in the long format list.
[intro_to_linux]$ ls -l data
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 6 arcc-t05 arcc-t05 2021
drwxrwxr-x 6 arcc-t05 arcc-t05 2022
drwxrwxr-x 5 arcc-t05 arcc-t05 2023
drwxrwxr-x 2 arcc-t05 arcc-t05 dd.tx
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -type f -name "*.tx"
./data/2021/feb/february_01_2021.tx
# We explicitly want lowercase.
[intro_to_linux]$ find . -type f -iname "*.tx"
./data/2021/feb/february_01_2021.tx
./data/2022/20220723.TX

Next Steps

Previous

View and Search Text & Directories

Workshop Home

Intro to Linux CLI: View, Find & Search

Next

Output Redirection and Pipes

 

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