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17 – Searching For Files
As we have wandered around our Linux system, one thing has become abundantly clear: A typical Linux system has a lot of files! This begs the question, “How do we find things?” We already know that the Linux file system is well organized according to con- ventions that have been passed down from one generation of Unix-like systems to the next, but the sheer number of files can present a daunting problem.
In this chapter, we will look at two tools that are used to find files on a system. These tools are:
● locate – Find files by name
● find – Search for files in a directory hierarchy
We will also look at a command that is often used with file-search commands to process the resulting list of files:
● xargs – Build and execute command lines from standard input
In addition, we will introduce a couple of commands to assist us in our explorations:
● touch – Change file times
● stat – Display file or file system status