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Search for a single file and go to it

Terminal - Search for a single file and go to it
cd $(dirname $(find ~ -name emails.txt))
2009-05-01 21:26:58
User: haivu
Functions: cd dirname find
9
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Search for a single file and go to it

This command looks for a single file named emails.txt which is located somewhere in my home directory and cd to that directory. This command is especially helpful when the file is burried deep in the directory structure. I tested it against the bash shells in Xubuntu 8.10 and Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6

Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

Not that it's a deal breaker, but this command messes up if there is multiple files with the same name in separate directories:

dirname: extra operand `/home/user/docs/emails.txt'

Adding "|head -1" after 'emails.txt' helps but you don't necessarily know which directory you're going to end up in.

cd $(dirname $(find ~ -name emails.txt|head -1))
Comment by hdilemma 215 weeks and 5 days ago

you could scope out the directory list before cd'ing with something like this:

find ~ -name emails.txt -exec dirname {} \; | sort | uniq

the trailing sort|uniq combo just ensures any directory name returned is only displayed once.

Comment by bwoodacre 215 weeks and 5 days ago

@bwoodacre: nice.

Comment by sudopeople 215 weeks and 5 days ago

The find will quit after the first file it finds, rather than piping to head -1.

cd $(find ~ -name emails.txt -exec dirname {} \; -quit)
Comment by decasm 215 weeks ago

Your point of view

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