Best Find Command

ckoniecny · 02-13-2006, 08:00 AM

I have a couple ways of searching the entire filesystem for a file, but I'm not sure if its the best way. I usually use:

Code:

find / -name filename -print

or

Code:

locate filename

What are some other useful ways you can search the filesystem?

Thanks.

satinet · 02-13-2006, 08:07 AM

there is beagle on gnome that acts like the google desktop search.

find is a bit different to slocate. finding file names is only a small part of what find is actually for - read the man page. you can search for files over a certain age etc.

wherease slocate is a quick file searching utility and they are quite different in that regard. slocate often neeed to be piped (|) into other commands to filter the output.

i think you've already struck on the best two choices.

marozsas · 02-13-2006, 08:55 AM

For KDE users there is kat. It's search not only for filenames but it can search for a string inside documents, e-mails, etc..

ethics · 02-13-2006, 10:27 AM

i use slocate from the terminal, never had any problems (except having to run updatedb if i'm searching for something relatively new on the system)

frob23 · 02-13-2006, 10:44 AM

For generic global searches, I use locate. But for something which is specific or weird, I use find. I've never tried kat or beagle... but I'm usually at the command line anyway when I am looking for something.

ntubski · 02-13-2006, 04:42 PM

Is there a difference between locate and slocate?

Tinkster · 02-13-2006, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

Is there a difference between locate and slocate?

You mean other than the name? ;)

Yeah, slocate will only show files you actually have
access to (it's secure locate, that's where the s came
from [in case you wondered]).

Cheers,
Tink

jerril · 02-13-2006, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by satinet

there is beagle on gnome that acts like the google desktop search.

Awesome suggestion, I just installed it, and it seems to work very well.

It doesn't choke on odd suffixes in file names like google desktop search does. I use a an oddball suffix for journals and other files with a custom markup; they're still plain old text.

Thanks
jer

rickh · 02-13-2006, 07:08 PM

Quote:

slocate will only show files you actually have access to

I didn't know about slocate, and it's sometimes mildly irritating to have to switch over to root when I've simply forgotten where I put something.

so I tried to run slocate as a non-privledged user. Didn't exist. Checked my repo, sure enough, it said I didn't have it installed. I installed it. Didn't do what I expected.

As near as I can tell, I can now run either 'locate' or 'slocate' as a non-privledged user, and it returns all the same files as root. This is not really a problem for me on my own personal PC, but I'd be cautious if I didn't want regular users to see files thay can't write or execute.

Maybe this is just a bug in Debian Etch.

Tinkster · 02-13-2006, 07:35 PM

Did you run updatedb -c after the update?

Cheers,
Tink

satinet · 02-14-2006, 11:47 AM

Hi jerril,

yeah i installed Foresight linux because it has beagle installed as default (along with some other cool stuff). but i haven't had time to get it going. well, and the fact that there is very little info on how to use foresight (even on their own website!).

jerril · 02-14-2006, 12:36 PM

Hey satinet

When it opened; I entered a search for a string in a file that I knew would be in my directory tree.

It delivers a message after I enter a search term:

Quote:

The query for gimli failed.
The likely cause is that the beagle daemon isn't running.

and below it:

Quote:

Click to start the Beagle daemon...

I clicked and that started the daemon; but there is a delay as it builds the index. Eventually it began to return results. There was little feedback, the gnome waiting cursor was intermittent as it went on. If you have a large directory tree, it might be time for tea.

I'm looking at the man pages to see what there is, so far I've found:

Code:

$ apropos beagle
beagle-build-index (8) - (unknown subject)
beagle-config (1)    - command-line interface to the Beagle configuration file
beagle-manage-index (8) - (unknown subject)
beagle-query (1)     - search your personal information space
beagle-shutdown (1)  - cleanly shutdown the Beagle daemon
beagle-status (1)    - repeatedly display Beagle status
beagled (1)          - the Beagle daemon

I'll be reading up over the next... uh dunno.

later
jer

satinet · 02-14-2006, 03:14 PM

jerril,

i dont have an ubuntu install at the moment, i guess you installed the normal way. sounds like your 'beagle' daemon is not starting at boot time. check with 'sudo ps -ef|grep -i beagle'.

i would have thought it would have installed the relevant rc script. depends how you installed it. i've never even used it yet!

jerril · 02-15-2006, 01:46 AM

satinet

No big problem, I don't know if I will need beagle very often. I know where most of my stuff is, and I have better ways of dealing with it on my own.

I'll play around with Beagle, it will be available for me when I need it. I like the command line counterpart, nice touch. As I poke around, I see more I like.

It keeps Tomboy indexes too (another cool program my own way of work using vi and bash does better, I'ts nice to have some decent gui tools though).

Happy Computing

jer

rickh · 02-15-2006, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Did you run updatedb -c after the update? -- Tinkster

That command returned 'updatedb: option requires an argument -- c'

Checked man updatedb ... Doesn't include a -c option.

When I installed slocate, there was an instruction on the screen to run updatedb with some options which I can't remember anymore. I did that.