Shell Script to Recursively Loop Through Directory and print location of important files

will it loop through all the files and sub-directories for any .class files though or just stop at the first one it finds? Thank-you for the quick answer btw. :D

It gives relative path - not absolute which is what the OP is looking for

pdw Over a year ago

@user3808269 It will list all matching files in all subdirectories. And if you run the find command with a absolute path, it will print absolute paths. If you start it with a relative path, it will print relative paths.

...well, if you want an absolute path, just make it find "$PWD/dir".

Oh wow. This works. Thanks pdw and @CharlesDuffy for the help

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Akos Bannerth · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-06 22:19:33Z

0

You can save the redirection by using find's -fprint option:

find <top-directory>  -name '*.class' -fprint location.txt

From the man page:

-fprint file [...] print the full file name into file file. If file does not exist when find is run, it is created; if it does exist, it is truncated.

answered Jul 6, 2014 at 22:19

Akos Bannerth

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4 Comments

That's a GNU extension -- not available in find implementations that only comply with the POSIX standard: pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/find.html

I voted for Akos for the answer because this user has much fewer points and had some clearer syntax with the <top-directory> part of the script. Also, I was unaware of the -fprint option before this. Thanks er'body especially @pdw . :D

I like how fprint saves time with not having to create a file. with cat or touch.

@user3808269, you don't need to use cat or touch regardless (particularly not cat, which doesn't actually create files at all); >location.txt creates the file as-is.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:29:27Z

0

A less preferred way to do it is to use `ls`:

ls -d $PWD**/* | grep class

let's break it down:

ls -d # lists the directory (returns `.`)
ls -d $PWD # lists the directory - but this time $PWD will provide full path
ls -d $PWD/** # list the directory with full-path and every file under this directory (not recursively) - an effect which is due to `/**` part
ls -d $PWD/**/* # same like previous one, only that now do it recursively to the folders below (achieved by adding the `/*` at the end)

A better way of doing it:

After reading this due to recommendation from Charles Duffy, it appears as a bad idea to use both ls as well as find (article also says: "find is just as bad as ls in this context".) The reason it's a bad idea is because you can't control the output of ls: for example, you can't configure ls to terminate filenames with NUL. The reason it's problematic is that unix allows all kind of weird characters in a file-name (newline, pipe etc) and will "break" ls in a way you can't anticipate.

Better use a shell script for the task, and it's pretty simple task too:

Create a file my_script.sh, edit the file to contain:

for i in **/*; do
    echo $PWD/$i
done

Give it execute permissions (by running: chmod +x my_script.sh).

Run it from the same directory with:

./my_script.sh

and you're good to go!

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:29

CommunityBot

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answered Jul 6, 2014 at 22:31

Nir Alfasi

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9 Comments

what does the -1 one do in this script? Where is the directory to be searched through specified? Thanks for the reply. Interesting.

@user3808269 good catch, I was playing with it and forgot to remove the -1. I'll add explanation in the answer for the rest.

-1; read mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs for a detailed description of why ls should never be used programatically.

@CharlesDuffy thanks for the link - I'll read it right after I tuck the kids in to bed.