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It is suggested that you use Python (the pathlib module) instead of the fselect command to find files.

Tips and Traps¶

is_* columns supporting comparing with 1, true and yes, etc.
where name like '%.markdown' can be written as where name like %.markdown and is equivalent to where name = '*.markdown'
It is suggested that you use gt instead of > as > is interpreted as the redirect operator in shell if no quotes is used.

In [13]:

!fselect * from . where is_file = 1

tips-on-cargo.markdown	tips-on-rustc.markdown	use-fselect-to-find-files.ipynb

In [16]:

!fselect name from . depth 1 where is_file = 1

tips-on-cargo.markdown
tips-on-rustc.markdown
use-fselect-to-find-files.ipynb

Find all files with the extension .markdown in the current directory and its subdirectory.

In [26]:

!fselect name from . where is_file = 1 and name like %.markdown

tips-on-cargo.markdown
tips-on-rustc.markdown

The pipe operator | is very useful for piping the result of a command to another one. Below is an example of find all markdown files in the current directory and keep only those that have cargo in the name.

In [39]:

!fselect name from . where is_file = 1 and name like %.markdown | grep cargo

tips-on-cargo.markdown

Of course, this example is not very useful as it is equivalent to the following simpler command (no need of grep)

In [41]:

!fselect name from . where is_file = 1 and name like %cargo%.markdown

tips-on-cargo.markdown

However, the below example is an useful one which find all markdown files in the current directory and then find lines containing the keyword cargo in those files.

In [40]:

!fselect name from . where is_file = 1 and name like %.markdown | xargs grep cargo

tips-on-cargo.markdown:Slug: tips-on-cargo
tips-on-cargo.markdown:Tags: Computer Science, programming, rust, cargo
tips-on-cargo.markdown:    cargo init
tips-on-cargo.markdown:    cargo new project_name
tips-on-cargo.markdown:    cargo run
tips-on-cargo.markdown:    cargo build
tips-on-cargo.markdown:    cargo build --release
tips-on-rustc.markdown:Tags: Computer Science, programming, Rust, rustc, optimization, cargo
tips-on-rustc.markdown:    and `cargo build --release` uses the release profile which defaults to `-C opt-level=3`.

File Size¶

Find files with size greater than 10 (bytes).

In [35]:

!fselect name, size from . where is_file = 1 and size gt 10

tips-on-cargo.markdown	403
tips-on-rustc.markdown	1005
use-fselect-to-find-files.ipynb	7505
use-fselect-to-find-files-checkpoint.ipynb	1121

In [37]:

!fselect "name, size from . where is_file = 1 and size > 10"

tips-on-cargo.markdown	403
tips-on-rustc.markdown	1005
use-fselect-to-find-files.ipynb	7505
use-fselect-to-find-files-checkpoint.ipynb	1121

Notice that the following query won't work.

fselect name, size from . where is_file = 1 and size > 10

It is interprecated as redirecting the result of fselect name, size from . where is_file = 1 and size into a file named 10.

Find files with size greater than 5k (bytes).

In [38]:

!fselect name, size from . where is_file = 1 and size gt 5k

use-fselect-to-find-files.ipynb	8169

Find empty directories.
```
 :::bash
 find / -type d -empty
```

In [46]:

!fselect name, accessed from . where is_file = 1 and accessed gt '1 hour ago'

[/home/dclong/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/fselect-0.7.4/src/parser.rs:48] fields = [
    Expr {
        left: None,
        arithmetic_op: None,
        logical_op: None,
        op: None,
        right: None,
        minus: false,
        field: Some(
            Name,
        ),
        function: None,
        args: None,
        val: None,
    },
    Expr {
        left: None,
        arithmetic_op: None,
        logical_op: None,
        op: None,
        right: None,
        minus: false,
        field: Some(
            Accessed,
        ),
        function: None,
        args: None,
        val: None,
    },
]
[/home/dclong/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/fselect-0.7.4/src/parser.rs:49] roots = [
    Root {
        path: ".",
        min_depth: 0,
        max_depth: 0,
        archives: false,
        symlinks: false,
        gitignore: None,
        hgignore: None,
        dockerignore: None,
        traversal: Bfs,
        regexp: false,
    },
]
query: Could not parse tokens at the end of the query

In [48]:

!fselect "name, accessed from . where is_file = 1 and accessed gt '1 hour ago'"

use-fselect-to-find-files.ipynb	2021-04-04 22:52:11
use-fselect-to-find-files-checkpoint.ipynb	2021-04-04 22:48:11

In [49]:

!fselect "name, accessed from . where is_file = 1 and accessed lt '1 hour ago'"

tips-on-cargo.markdown	2021-04-02 08:16:26
tips-on-rustc.markdown	2021-04-02 08:16:26

Find broken symbolic links.

 :::bash
 find . -xtype l
 # or
 find -L . -type l

Find executable files in current directory

 :::bash
 find .  -maxdepth 1 -type f -executable

Find files that belong to a user but writable by its group or other people.
```
:::bash
find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm /022
```
Check file type of all files under the current directory.
```
:::bash
find . -type f | xargs file
```

-perm mode: File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic). -perm -mode: All of the permission bits mode are set for the file. -perm /mode: Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file. a little bit trick about how to understand the last 2 permission criterias. as suggested, think in terms of permission BITs (0/1)

The following command finds all files that readable or writable by the group or (readable or writable) by others.

:::bash
find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm /066

The following command find all files that readable and writable by the group and (readable and writable) by others.

:::bash
find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm -066

The following command find all files that readable or writable by the group and (readable or writable) by others.

:::bash
find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm /060 -perm /006

Find Python scripts in the current directory recursively but ignore those under directories with the name .ipynb_checkpoints.

:::bash
find . -type f -iname '*.py' -not -path '*/.ipynb_checkpoints/*'

References¶

https://github.com/jhspetersson/fselect/issues/88

In [ ]:

Tips and Traps¶

File Size¶

Time Related¶

File Type Related Finding¶

User Related Finding¶

References¶