File Location
|
Locate files in a directory hierarchy. |
xargs
|
Process a list of located files (and much more). |
locate
|
Create an index of files, and search the index for string. |
which
|
Locate executables in your search path (command). |
type
|
Locate executables in your search path (bash built-in). |
whereis
|
Locate executables, documentation, and source files. |
Linux systems can contain hundreds of thousands of files easily. How can you find a particular file when you need to? The first step is to organize your files logically into directories in some thoughtful manner, but there are several other ways to find files, depending on what you’re looking for.
For finding any file, find
is a
brute-force program that slogs file-by-file through a directory
hierarchy to locate a target. locate
is much faster, searching through a prebuilt index that you generate as
needed. (Some distros generate the index nightly by default.)
For finding programs, the which
and type
commands check all
directories in your shell search path. type
is built into the bash shell (and
therefore available only when you’re running bash), while which
is a program (normally /usr/bin/which); type
is faster and can detect shell
aliases.[12] In contrast, whereis
examines a known set of directories, rather than your search
path.
[12] The tcsh
shell performs
some trickery to make which
detect aliases.
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