Search a folder hierarchy for filename(s) that meet a desired criteria.
To quickly find any text string within any text file, try this from a terminal window: grep -l text to find files to look in For example, grep -l 123abc.html will list the name of any file in the current directory that ends in.html and contains the string 123abc. The command line can be a powerful productivity tool, if you know the basics. MacOS; Working Mac. How to navigate the file system from the command-line prompt. Oct 19, 2013 Sample outputs: Fig.01: curl command in action The -o option write output to a file called mastering-vim.pdf instead of screen. You can skip the -o option and use the -O (capital letter O) to write (save) output to a local file named like the remote file we get. Only the file part of the remote file is used, the path is cut off.
Primaries
All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be preceded by a plus sign (`+') or a minus sign (`-'). A preceding plus sign means `more than n', a preceding minus sign means `less than n' and neither means `exactly n'.
Operators
The primaries can be combined using the following operators. The operators are listed in order of decreasing precedence.
Bugs
The special characters used by find are also special characters to many shell programs. In particular, the characters *, [, ], ?, (, ), !, and ; might have to be escaped from the shell.
As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names and the expression, it is difficult to specify files named -xdev or !. These problems are handled by the -f option and the getopt(3) -- construct.
The -delete primary does not interact well with other options that cause the filesystem tree traversal options to be changed.
As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names and the expression, it is difficult to specify files named -xdev or !. These problems are handled by the -f option and the getopt(3) -- construct.
The -delete primary does not interact well with other options that cause the filesystem tree traversal options to be changed.
EXAMPLES
Print a list of all the files whose names do not end in .c.
Print a list of all the files whose names do not end in .c.
$ find / ! -name '*.c' -print
Print a list of all the files owned by user `wnj' that are newer than the file ttt.
$ find / -newer ttt -user wnj -print
Print out a list of all the files which are not both newer than ttt and owned by `simon'.
$ find / ! ( -newer ttt -user simon ) -print
Print a list of all the files that are either owned by `simon' or that are newer than ttt.
$ find / ( -newer ttt -or -user simon ) -print
Print out a list of all the files whose inode change time is more recent than the current time minus one minute:
$ find . -newerct '1 minute ago' -print
$ find . -newerct '1 minute ago' -print
List filenames ending in .mp3, searching in the current folder and all subfolders:
$ find . -name '*.mp3'
$ find . -name '*.mp3'
List filenames matching the name Alice or ALICE (case insensitive), search in the current folder (.) and all subfolders:
https://greatnews467.weebly.com/coreldraw-for-mac-os-x-107.html. $ find . -iname 'alice' -print0
https://greatnews467.weebly.com/coreldraw-for-mac-os-x-107.html. $ find . -iname 'alice' -print0
List filenames matching the name Alice or ALICE (case insensitive), search in the current folder (.) only:
$ find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'alice' -print0
$ find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'alice' -print0
Macos Command Line Search For File Windows 7
List filenames ending in .mp3, searching in the music folder and subfolders:
$ find ./music -name '*.mp3' Wacom driver for mac catalina.
$ find ./music -name '*.mp3' Wacom driver for mac catalina.
List files with the exact name: Sales_document.doc in ./work and subfolders:
$ find ./work -name Sales_document.doc
$ find ./work -name Sales_document.doc
List all the file links:
$ find . -type l
$ find . -type l
List all files that belong to the user Maude:
$ find . -user Maude -print0
$ find . -user Maude -print0
List all files (and subdirectories) in your home directory:
$ find $HOME
$ find $HOME
List all files in sub-directories (but not the directory names)
$ find . -type f
$ find . -type f
List all the directory and sub-directory names:
$ find . -type d
$ find . -type d
List all the empty directories:
$ find . -type d -empty
$ find . -type d -empty
Delete all empty directories, this will recurse the tree:
$ find . -type d -empty -delete
$ find . -type d -empty -delete
Line Search Optimization
Macos authorized keys for system accounts. Search for every .app file (application package) including those not in the applications folder:
$ sudo find / -iname *.app
Apple System Information will have more details: version, and where the app was obtained from.
$ sudo find / -iname *.app
Apple System Information will have more details: version, and where the app was obtained from.
Find files that are over a gigabyte in size:
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M
Find files that are over 1 GB but less than 20 GB in size:
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M -size -20480M -print0
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M -size -20480M -print0
Find all .DS_Store files in the current directory (.) and its subdirectories and DELETE them:
$ find . -name '*.DS_Store' -type f -delete
$ find . -name '*.DS_Store' -type f -delete
Find all .gif files, pipe to xargs to get the size and then pipe into tail to display only the grand total:
$ find . -iname '*.gif' -print0 | xargs -0 du -ch | tail -1
$ find . -iname '*.gif' -print0 | xargs -0 du -ch | tail -1
Find files have been modified within the last day:
$ find ~/Movies -mtime -1
$ find ~/Movies -mtime -1
Find files have been modified within the last 30 minutes:
$ find ~/Movies -mmin -30
$ find ~/Movies -mmin -30
Find .doc files that also start with 'questionnaire' (AND)
$ find . -name '*.doc' -name questionnaire*
$ find . -name '*.doc' -name questionnaire*
List all files beginning with 'memo' and owned by Maude (AND)
$ find . -name 'memo*' -user Maude
$ find . -name 'memo*' -user Maude
Macos Command Line Search For File Free
Find .doc files that do NOT start with 'Accounts' (NOT)
$ find . -name '*.doc' ! -name Accounts*
$ find . -name '*.doc' ! -name Accounts*
Find files named 'secrets' in or below the directory /tmp and delete them. No skill delay hack ragnarok battle. Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces:
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Windows Command Line Search
Find files named 'secrets' in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing filenames in such a way that file or directory names containing single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly handled. The -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid having to call stat on every file.
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
Run 'myapp' on every file in or below the current directory. Notice that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to protect them from interpretation as shell script punctuation. The semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash, though ';' could have been used in that case also.
find . -type f -exec myapp '{}' ;
Traverse the filesystem just once, listing setuid files and directories into /root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.
find / ( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %pn' ) ,
( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %pn' )
( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %pn' )
Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-four hours. This command works this way because the time since each file was last modified is divided by 24 hours and any remainder is discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0, a file will have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.
find $HOME -mtime 0
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner, and group, but which other users can read but not write to (664). Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits set (for example if someone can execute the file) will not be matched.
find . -perm 664
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner and group, and which other users can read, without regard to the presence of any extra permission bits (for example the executable bit). This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
find . -perm -664
Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their group, or anybody else).
find . -perm /222
“We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled” ~ Bill Watterson
Related macOS commands:
grep - Search file(s) for lines that match a given pattern.
Autodesk fusion 360 mac download. ln - Make links between files (hard links, symbolic links).
ls - List information about file(s).
locate - Find files.
mdfind - Spotlight search.
rm - Remove files.
whereis - Locate a command.
which - Locate a program file in the user's path.
Autodesk fusion 360 mac download. ln - Make links between files (hard links, symbolic links).
ls - List information about file(s).
locate - Find files.
mdfind - Spotlight search.
rm - Remove files.
whereis - Locate a command.
which - Locate a program file in the user's path.
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Some rights reserved
If the weird name throws you, 'grep' is an acronym for 'general regular expression Some rights reserved
Macos Command Line Search For File Online
program'. If that doesn't help, it's probably because you're wondering what a
regular expression ('re' or 'regex') is. Basically, it's a pattern used to describe
a string of characters, and if you want to know aaaaaaall about them, I highly
recommend reading Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey Friedl and
published by Unix 端ber-publisher O'Reilly & Associates.
Regexes (regices, regexen, .the pluralization is a matter of debate) are an extremely
useful tool for any kind of text processing. Searching for patterns with grep is
most people's first exposure to them, as like the article says, you can use them to search
for a literal pattern within any number of text files on your computer. The cool thing is
that it doesn't have to be a literal pattern, but can be as complex as you'd like.
useful tool for any kind of text processing. Searching for patterns with grep is
most people's first exposure to them, as like the article says, you can use them to search
for a literal pattern within any number of text files on your computer. The cool thing is
that it doesn't have to be a literal pattern, but can be as complex as you'd like.
The key to this is understanding that certain characters are 'metacharacters', which have
special meaning for the regex-using program. For example, a plus character (+) tells the
program to match one or more instances of whatever immediately precedes it, while parentheses
serve to treat whatever is contained as a unit. Thus, 'ha+' matches 'ha', but it also matches
'haa' and 'haaaaaaaaaaa', but not 'hahaha'. If you want to match the word 'ha', you can use
'(ha)+' to match one or more instances of it, such as 'hahaha' and 'hahahahahahahahaha'.
Using a vertical bar allows alternate matching, so '(ha|ho)+' matches 'hohoho', 'hahaha', and
'hahohahohohohaha'. Etc.
special meaning for the regex-using program. For example, a plus character (+) tells the
program to match one or more instances of whatever immediately precedes it, while parentheses
serve to treat whatever is contained as a unit. Thus, 'ha+' matches 'ha', but it also matches
'haa' and 'haaaaaaaaaaa', but not 'hahaha'. If you want to match the word 'ha', you can use
'(ha)+' to match one or more instances of it, such as 'hahaha' and 'hahahahahahahahaha'.
Using a vertical bar allows alternate matching, so '(ha|ho)+' matches 'hohoho', 'hahaha', and
'hahohahohohohaha'. Etc.
There are many of these metacharacters to keep in mind. Inside brackets ([]), a carat (^)
means that you don't want to match whatever follows inside the brackets. For Magritte
fans, '[^(a cigar)]' matches any text that is not 'a cigar'. The rest of the time, the carat tells
the program to match only at the beginning of a line, while a dollar sign ($) matches only at
the end. Therefore, '^everything$' matches the word 'everything' only when it is on a line all
by itself and '^[^(anything else)]' matches all lines that do not begin with 'anything else'.
means that you don't want to match whatever follows inside the brackets. For Magritte
fans, '[^(a cigar)]' matches any text that is not 'a cigar'. The rest of the time, the carat tells
the program to match only at the beginning of a line, while a dollar sign ($) matches only at
the end. Therefore, '^everything$' matches the word 'everything' only when it is on a line all
by itself and '^[^(anything else)]' matches all lines that do not begin with 'anything else'.
The period (.) matches any character at all, and the asterisk (*) matches zero or more times.
Compare this to the plus, which matches one or more times -- a subtle but important
difference. A lot of regular expressions look for '.*', which is zero or more of anything
(that is, anything at all). This is useful when searching for two things that might or might
not have anything else (that you probably don't care about) between them: 'foo.*bar' will match
on 'foobar', 'foo bar' & 'foo boo a wop bop a lop bam boo bar'. Changing the previous example
to a plus, 'foo.+bar', requires that anything -- come between foo and bar, but it doesn't matter
what, so 'foobar' doesn't match but the other two examples given do match.
Compare this to the plus, which matches one or more times -- a subtle but important
difference. A lot of regular expressions look for '.*', which is zero or more of anything
(that is, anything at all). This is useful when searching for two things that might or might
not have anything else (that you probably don't care about) between them: 'foo.*bar' will match
on 'foobar', 'foo bar' & 'foo boo a wop bop a lop bam boo bar'. Changing the previous example
to a plus, 'foo.+bar', requires that anything -- come between foo and bar, but it doesn't matter
what, so 'foobar' doesn't match but the other two examples given do match.
For details, try the man pages -- 'man grep'. There are a lot of different versions of the
program, so details may vary. All of this should be valid for OSX though.
program, so details may vary. All of this should be valid for OSX though.
Confusing? Maybe, but regular expressions aren't that bad when you get used to them, and
they can be a very useful tool to take advantage of it you know what you're doing. An example.
they can be a very useful tool to take advantage of it you know what you're doing. An example.
Let's say you have an website stored on your computer as a series of html documents.
As a cutting edge developer, you've seen the CSS light and want to delete all the
tags wherever they're just saying e.g. face='sans-serif' &/or size='12', because the
stylesheet can now do that for you. On the other hand, it's possible that the patterns
'face='sans-serif' or 'size='12' could show up in normal text (though admittedly
that's unlikely). In fact, what you really want to know is wherever those patterns show up in
a font tag, but you don't care about anywhere else that they might appear. Here's one way to
find that pattern:
As a cutting edge developer, you've seen the CSS light and want to delete all the
tags wherever they're just saying e.g. face='sans-serif' &/or size='12', because the
stylesheet can now do that for you. On the other hand, it's possible that the patterns
'face='sans-serif' or 'size='12' could show up in normal text (though admittedly
that's unlikely). In fact, what you really want to know is wherever those patterns show up in
a font tag, but you don't care about anywhere else that they might appear. Here's one way to
find that pattern:
This does a number of things. The -i tells grep to ignore case (otherwise it's case sensitive,
and won't match 'FONT' if you're looking for 'font' or 'Font'). The -r tells it to recursively
descend through the directories from wherever the command starts -- in this case, all htm and
html files in the current directory. Everything in single quotes is the pattern we're matching.
We tell grep to match on any text that starts with ' (thus staying within the font tag), and then either the face or
https://entrancementamazing.weebly.com/free-garageband-plugins-for-ipad.html. size definition that we're interested in. The one glitch here is that line breaks can break
things, though there are various ways around that. Finding them is left as the proverbial
exercise for the reader. :)
and won't match 'FONT' if you're looking for 'font' or 'Font'). The -r tells it to recursively
descend through the directories from wherever the command starts -- in this case, all htm and
html files in the current directory. Everything in single quotes is the pattern we're matching.
We tell grep to match on any text that starts with ' (thus staying within the font tag), and then either the face or
https://entrancementamazing.weebly.com/free-garageband-plugins-for-ipad.html. size definition that we're interested in. The one glitch here is that line breaks can break
things, though there are various ways around that. Finding them is left as the proverbial
exercise for the reader. :)
The next question is, what do you want to do with this information you've come up with?
Presumably you want to edit those files in order to fix them, right? With that in mind, maybe
it would be useful to just make a list of matches. Grep normally outputs all the lines that
match the pattern, but if you just want the filenames, use the -l switch. If you want to save
the results into a file, redirect the output of the command accordingly. With those changes,
we now have:
Presumably you want to edit those files in order to fix them, right? With that in mind, maybe
it would be useful to just make a list of matches. Grep normally outputs all the lines that
match the pattern, but if you just want the filenames, use the -l switch. If you want to save
the results into a file, redirect the output of the command accordingly. With those changes,
we now have:
Great. But we can do better still. If you are comforable with the vi editor, you can call vi
with that command directly. The trick is to wrap the command in backticks (`). This is a cool
little Unix trick that runs the contained command & returns the result for whatever you want
to do with it. Thus you can simply put this command:
with that command directly. The trick is to wrap the command in backticks (`). This is a cool
little Unix trick that runs the contained command & returns the result for whatever you want
to do with it. Thus you can simply put this command:
The result of this command, as far as your tcsh shell is concerned, is something along the lines
of
of
etc. The beautiful thing here is that if you quit vi & re-run the command later, it will be
able to effectively 'pick up where you left off', since files you've already edited will
presumably no longer match the grep command.
able to effectively 'pick up where you left off', since files you've already edited will
presumably no longer match the grep command.
And if you want to get really ambitious, you can use these techniques in ways that
allow you to do all your editing directly from the command line, without having to go into an
interactive editor such as vi or emacs or whatever. If you make it this far in your experiments,
then the next step is to learn to filter the results of a match and process the filtered data
in some way, using tools such as sed, awk, and perl. Using these tools, you can find all
instances of the pattern in question, break it down however you like, substitute or shuffle the
parts around however you like, and then build it all back up again. This is fun stuff! By this
point, you're getting pretty heavily into Unix arcana, and the best book that I've seen about
these tricks is O'Reilly's Unix Power Tools, by various authors. If you really want to leverage
the power of the tools that all Unixes come with, including OSX, then this is a great place to
both start & end up. There's plenty of material in there to keep you busy for months & years.
allow you to do all your editing directly from the command line, without having to go into an
interactive editor such as vi or emacs or whatever. If you make it this far in your experiments,
then the next step is to learn to filter the results of a match and process the filtered data
in some way, using tools such as sed, awk, and perl. Using these tools, you can find all
instances of the pattern in question, break it down however you like, substitute or shuffle the
parts around however you like, and then build it all back up again. This is fun stuff! By this
point, you're getting pretty heavily into Unix arcana, and the best book that I've seen about
these tricks is O'Reilly's Unix Power Tools, by various authors. If you really want to leverage
the power of the tools that all Unixes come with, including OSX, then this is a great place to
both start & end up. There's plenty of material in there to keep you busy for months & years.