Help with find files

akeka · 10-02-2012, 02:19 AM

Hi,

I want to search multiple file name in multiple location

Can I do it in one command ?

Thanks for the help

kabamaru · 10-02-2012, 02:29 AM

Code:

find PATH_1 PATH_2 PATH_N -name NAME_A -o -name NAME_B -o -name NAME_C

akeka · 10-02-2012, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kabamaru

Code:

find PATH_1 PATH_2 PATH_N -name NAME_A -o -name NAME_B -o -name NAME_C

Thank you for the reply

Can I use input file that contain list of the files that I want to search ?

Since the files are quite many

Thanks again

kabamaru · 10-02-2012, 02:44 AM

Code:

grep 'SEARCH_STRING' INPUT_FILE

grep uses basic regular expressions, and with the -E switch, it uses extended regular expressions.

akeka · 10-02-2012, 02:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kabamaru

Code:

grep 'SEARCH_STRING' INPUT_FILE

grep uses basic regular expressions, and with the -E switch, it uses extended regular expressions.

Can you please be more specific ?

Let say

I've file named list that contain the list of files that I want to search

Quote:

file1
file2
file3
file4
file5
...

Thanks

kabamaru · 10-02-2012, 03:04 AM

If for example, you want to find file with name "file1" in a list named "my_list.txt",

Code:

grep 'SEARCH_STRING' INPUT_FILE

translates to

Code:

grep 'file1' my_list.txt

That said, the program find generates a list that looks more like this:

Code:

./file1
./path1/path2/file_2
....... etc.

So you could use

Code:

grep '/file1$' my_list.txt

which will search for lines that end ($) with '/file1'.

akeka · 10-02-2012, 03:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kabamaru

If for example, you want to find file with name "file1" in a list named "my_list.txt",

Code:

grep 'SEARCH_STRING' INPUT_FILE

translates to

Code:

grep 'file1' my_list.txt

That said, the program find generates a list that looks more like this:

Code:

./file1
./path1/path2/file_2
....... etc.

So you could use

Code:

grep '/file1$' my_list.txt

which will search for lines that end ($) with '/file1'.

Hmmm, can I combine the grep command with find command for my needs ?

kabamaru · 10-02-2012, 03:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akeka

Hmmm, can I combine the grep command with find command for my needs ?

You can pipe them. Find's output becomes grep's input.

Code:

find_command | grep_command

akeka · 10-03-2012, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kabamaru

You can pipe them. Find's output becomes grep's input.

Code:

find_command | grep_command

Hi kabamaru,

Thank you for the reply but I still don't understand how the find and grep command on your example

kooru · 10-03-2012, 02:46 AM

Hi,

if you have a listfile.txt with the list of files that you want find on multiple path, you can do this:

Code:

while read line
do
        echo "Serching $line:"
        find PATH1 PATH2 PATH3 -name $line
done < listfile.txt

kabamaru · 10-03-2012, 02:59 AM

Simple example of find. Search current directory for file (or directory or whatever) named "mycv".

Code:

find . -name mycv

Another example of find:

Code:

find /home/bob /mnt/documents -type f -name "*.txt" -o -name "*.rtf"

Which means: search /home/bob and /mnt/documents for files (-type f) with name (-name) that ends in .txt or (-o) .rtf. To make this case insensitive e.g. to match (txt,rtf,TXT,RTF), use -iname instead of -name.

Output:

Code:

./home/bob/j.txt
./home/bob/formal.txt
./home/bob/folder1/z.txt
./mnt/documents/a_form.rtf
./mnt/documents/web/fun/links.txt
./mnt/documents/backup/b_form.rtf
...

Examle of grep + find:

Code:

find /home/bob /mnt/documents -name "*.txt" -o -name "*.rtf" | grep 'form'

Output:

Code:

./home/bob/formal.txt
./mnt/documents/a_form.rtf
./mnt/documents/backup/b_form.rtf

Grep got the output from find and displayed the lines that contained the string "form"

All that said, the tools you'll choose and the way you'll use them really depends on the specifics of the task at hand.