listing folders recursivley

jukebox55 · 02-29-2008, 07:54 AM

hello,

can anyone help with a problem im having. im trying to list all files of type .png on my system, but i cant seem to do it.

i thought this command would work, but it seems it does not

Code:

ls -R /*png

druuna · 02-29-2008, 07:59 AM

Hi,

In cases like this I tend to use the find command.

find . -type f -name "*png" should do the trick

This looks from the current dir (the dot ) for files (-type f) that end with png (-name "*png").

Hope this helps.

pixellany · 02-29-2008, 08:24 AM

ls -R will list recursively, beginning at the current directory

ls -R /dirname does the same thing, starting in /dirname---thus your command tries to find a directory at the root level whose name ends in png.

The find command will give you the location of the files. You can also do ls -R <dirname>|grep png. This will find all files (and folders) with png in the name.

druuna · 02-29-2008, 08:38 AM

Hi,

2 additions to pixellany's post:

1) The ls -R part works (recursive listing). ls -R *pnd doesn't work because the shell first expands *png and gives the output to ls -R.

2) ls -R | grep png has one (possible) drawback: It will only list the file names, not the dir(s) they reside in. If the path is also needed use find, otherwise use ls -R | grep "*png"

jukebox55 · 02-29-2008, 09:06 AM

interesting, thanks for that information. i used

Code:

find / -name *png

now can i ask for further help, i would like to cp those .png files that were found, into a directory in my home folder, i tried this

Code:

find / -name *png | cp /home/user/foundpngdir

but that wouldnt work, so i tried this

Code:

cp /home/user/foundpngdir $(find / -name *png)

but this gives me this error

Quote:

cp:target 'found.png' is not a directory

druuna · 02-29-2008, 09:11 AM

Hi,

find / -type f -name "*png" -exec cp {} ~ \;

This will look for *png files, starting at the root dir. This part you probably recognized.
The -exec part copies all that is found (represented by the {} to your homedir (I'm lazy, so I used ~, /home/user/ is also allowed). The \; at the end is needed to close/end the commdn.

Hope this helps.

jukebox55 · 02-29-2008, 09:37 AM

yes this works, thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by druuna

find / -type f -name "*png" -exec cp {} ~ \;

out of interest, is '-exec' an option to the find command? and why does the *png need to be double quoted?

druuna · 02-29-2008, 10:49 AM

Hi,

-exec .... \; is indeed one of the many options that can be used with find. It makes it possible to use other linux/unix commands within the find command.

About the quotes. Officially you need to use quotes (single or double, whatever you need) and I always use them. This is also true for other commands. I have to admit that most of the time the commands will work if you don't use the quotes, but it is 'good style' to use them

Hope this clears things up a bit.

jukebox55 · 02-29-2008, 11:13 AM

yes, its interesting, thankyou