How to create a script using the "find" command
 

Shown below is an example of how I use the Linux find command. It searches all folders below to show where the file named test may reside.

find . -name test -print

Shown here is a typical response I get. In this case, the find command has found the file named test down in the tmp directory.

./tmp/test

To minimize typing, I would like to create an alias or script using the find command string above. I invision something like:

fnd test

The file name test would be a variable where I could put any file name.

Thanks for any help

Hi,

Is your script only going to look in the current directory? Will you always be looking for all types?

If yes, your script (fnd):

You could try something like this...

## the / starts the find at the root of your filesystem and
## the 2>/dev/null will hide any permission errors.

save it as a script like myFind.sh
chmod +x myFind.sh #to give it execute
./myFind.sh {filename} to run it..

## I haven't tested this, but it should work. It might be slow,
## depending how big your filesystem is..
## - Raj

Sackboy

Thanks for your reply. I thank that is exactly what I want.
However, I am not sure what to do from here.

I created a file called fnd which contains the code below:

#!/bin/bash
find . -name $1 -print

I created a folder called scripts in my home directory
and put the file called fnd at that location.

When I type fnd, I get the response:

fnd: Command not found


Thanks for any additional help.

Try this..
The ~ indicates your home directory and the chmod +x modifies a regular file into an executable file.

Alternatively, you can put your scripts directory on the path with this..

export PATH=$PATH:~/scripts

- Raj

simply create an alias

script

alias fnd='sh test.sh'


then at the command line , just do

You need to write either a shell script, as posted above, or a shell function, which is pretty much the same thing, except that it resides inside the current shell environment rather than a separate file.

To set it up as a function, put this in your .bashrc file.
Once the terminal is restarted (or .bashrc reloaded), then "fnd <searchterm>" should work (be sure to quote terms with spaces or other reserved characters).

You could even expand it to include the starting directory.

As for the alias here:

This is not the correct way to launch the script. by specifying sh as the interpreter in the alias you are telling it to ignore the original /bin/bash shebang entirely. Better to just make it executable, and run it directly. Also don't forget that you need the full path to the script.


Name the script properly, make it globally executable, and put it in a location in your PATH, and you can even skip the alias entirely.

As root, assuming /usr/local/bin is in your PATH:
PS: You need to double-quote the $1 parameter too, as I did above, so that it can properly handle shell-reserved characters.

No need to write any script for this, you can just use a simple alias.

-print is the default behavior, so you can leave it off. What you're left with is:
And that's it.

The advantage of using a straight alias instead of a script is that you can throw extra flags on there as well, such as

The simplest alias should be:

And then you can always execute:

fnd test
 

Thank you for everyones input.
I ended up just creating the alias statement:

alias fnd='find . -name'

I do not think I want to put a specific location
to look for files as this changes frequently.

Plus if I search from a high starting point, / (root level) for example,
this would take some time to respond back.