Is it possible to search for a directory/file combination

find

I need to find an image, say ABC.jpg, that I know will have been programmatically placed into a directory named ABC_MPSC. I've tried:

cd /
find . -name "ABC_MPSC/ABC.jpg"

But that doesn't return anything (I actually know where the particular one I'm searching for is, so I know it exists). Is there a find command that could allow me not have to search manually?

Best Answer

There's a -path predicate that's useful here:

find . -path '*/ABC_MPSC/ABC.jpg'

The POSIX description for that predicate is:

The primary shall evaluate as true if the current pathname matches pattern using the pattern matching notation described in Pattern Matching Notation. The additional rules in Patterns Used for Filename Expansion do not apply as this is a matching operation, not an expansion.

The reason that your -name "ABC_MPSC/ABC.jpg" failed is because the -name predicate:

shall evaluate as true if the basename of the current pathname matches pattern

In other words, -name never sees the directory of the current filename, only the base filename itself (ABC.jpg, for example).

Related Solutions

Find Images by Size Using find, file, and awk

i know this is a bit overkill but, this will work every time (even if there are spaces in your filename) and regardless of how file displays the information.

find . -name '*.png' -exec file {} \; | sed 's/\(.*png\): .* \([0-9]* x [0-9]*\).*/\2 \1/' | awk 'int($1) > 500 {print}'

and it prints the dimensions of the picture and the file

explaination:

find all files named *.png under . and for each do a file on it
use sed to print only the filename and dimensions then re-order to print dimensions first
use awk to test the first number (height of pic) making sure its greater than 500 and if it is print dimensions and file name, if not do nothing.

Exclude directory in find

find . -name 'foo-exclude-me' -prune -o -name 'foo*' -print

With no -print, the implicit default action applies to every match, even pruned ones. The explicit -print applies only under the specified conditions, which are -name 'foo*' only in the else branch of -name 'foo-exclude-me'.

Generally speaking, use an explicit -print whenever you're doing something more complex than a conjunction of predicates.

Your second attempt with ! -path './foo-exclude-me/*' didn't work because ./foo-exclude-me doesn't match ./foo-exclude-me/* (no trailing /). Adding ! -path ./foo-exclude-me would work.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Find Images by Size Using find, file, and awk

Exclude directory in find

Related Question