I want to search for arbitrary file/directory names, but only want to list file paths containing the search string at the same position once.
Especially not every file within a directory matching the search string.
Here is an example, locate -i flatpak
lists:
/etc/flatpak
/etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.freedesktop.Flatpak.SystemHelper.conf
/etc/flatpak/remotes.d
/etc/profile.d/flatpak.sh
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/74
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/75
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/76
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/77
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/78
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/79
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/7a
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/7b
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/7c
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak/installation-tmp/repo/objects/7d
/var/lib/flatpak
/var/lib/flatpak/.changed
/var/lib/flatpak/.removed
/var/lib/flatpak/app
/var/lib/flatpak/appstream
/var/lib/flatpak/exports
/var/lib/flatpak/repo
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime
But I want a search result like this:
/etc/flatpak
/etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.freedesktop.Flatpak.SystemHelper.conf
/etc/profile.d/flatpak.sh
/home/simon/.cache/gnome-software/flatpak
/var/lib/flatpak
And which tool is best suited for this? locate
, find
, fd-find
?
Best Answer
Sounds like you want to search for
flatpak
in the file name only (and not in other path components), so you can use the-b
/--basename
option:So:
Another approach could be to use the
-r
/--regex
option and write:That is
flatpak
followed by any number of characters other than/
followed by the end of the file path.That might however miss filenames that have non-characters (in the current locale) after
flatpak
.