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How to tell "find" to not search inside hidden folders?

I basically want "find" to ignore all hidden files and folders.

I've got a command like:

find ~/ -type f -name 'whatever'

But it takes a while 'cos it seems to look inside all the hidden folders as well (where hidden folders are ones that begin with "."). What's the best way to search for files in my home dir, but don't bother looking inside hidden folders? I don't want it to display hidden files as well.

The first example won't show you any hidden file or directory

Code:

find . \( ! -regex '.*/\..*' \) -type f -name "whatever"

The second just discards the hidden directories, showing the hidden files into normal directories

Code:

find . \( ! -regex '.*/\..*/..*' \) -type f -name "whatever"

It's the regular expression option of find.

Thanks, what would be the equivalent for grep? Performing searches inside files, but ignoring hidden files and directories.

If you're performing a grep inside a file you need to specify the name. Don't specify hidden files and it won't search them, right?!

find . \( ! -regex '.*/\..*' \) -type f -name "whatever" -exec grep "text_to_search" {} \;

i think.

Quote:

Originally posted by Vincent_Vega
If you're performing a grep inside a file you need to specify the name. Don't specify hidden files and it won't search them, right?!

I meant, given a directory, find all files that contain a certain string, but ignoring hidden files and directories.

Hi robo555:
You have to do nothing. Really, hard is to grep this hidden files. I prepared a directory with three files: 2 are normal and 1 is hidden. Here is the directory:

Code:

Modelo:~/teste/grep# ls -laR

.:

total 24

drwxrwxr-x    3 root    root        4096 Jul 23 23:28 .

drwxrwxr-x    3 root    root        4096 Jul 23 23:16 ..

drwxrwxr-x    2 root    root        4096 Jul 23 23:29 .hidden

-rw-rw-r--    1 root    root            6 Jul 23 23:17 .text

-rw-rw-r--    1 root    root            6 Jul 23 23:17 text1

-rw-rw-r--    1 root    root            4 Jul 23 23:17 text2



./.hidden:

total 20

drwxrwxr-x    2 root    root        4096 Jul 23 23:29 .

drwxrwxr-x    3 root    root        4096 Jul 23 23:28 ..

-rw-rw-r--    1 root    root            6 Jul 23 23:17 .text

-rw-rw-r--    1 root    root            6 Jul 23 23:17 text1

-rw-rw-r--    1 root    root            4 Jul 23 23:17 text2

The contents of the files are:

Code:

text1

HELLO



text2

ALO



.text

HELLO

The same files were copied to the subdirectory ".hidden".
Entering

Code:

Modelo:~/teste/grep# grep HELLO *

text1:HELLO

Entering

Code:

Modelo:~/teste/grep# grep  -r HELLO *

text1:HELLO

See what happens when we grep the hidden file and the files under the hidden directory. Enter

Code:

Modelo:~/teste/grep# grep -r HELLO * .*

text1:HELLO

./text1:HELLO

./.text:HELLO

./.hidden/text1:HELLO

./.hidden/.text:HELLO

../grep/text1:HELLO

../grep/.text:HELLO

../grep/.hidden/text1:HELLO

../grep/.hidden/.text:HELLO

.hidden/text1:HELLO

.hidden/.text:HELLO

.text:HELLO

Have a nice week end!

Actually, that's what I meant - grep in a directory. By default it won't look pay any attention to the hidden files.

Search directory for files containing string, excluding hidden files/directories

Quote:

Originally Posted by robo555 (Post 1066036)

I meant, given a directory, find all files that contain a certain string, but ignoring hidden files and directories.

I would do it in this way:

Code:

find . \( ! -regex '.*/\..*' \) -exec grep -l "STRING_YOU_WANT_TO_CHECK_FOR" {} \;

Explanation:

\( ! -regex 'REGULAR_EXPRESSION' \) Used to exclude hidden files and directories.
-exec COMMAND {} \; Execute COMMAND on the arguments {}. '\;' is necessary to end the statement.
grep -l "STRING" FILENAME List the file name, if it contains the string.