Finding any file anywhere

[viking60]

To quickly find any file anywhere on your Linux system locate will do the job. I like to search for patterns and when I trace those spying Super cookies; finding extensions with *.sol will reveal them.
So this is what I did:

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locate "*.sol"

And sure enough it revealed all the places those rascals were hiding:

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/home/viking/.config/chromium/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/WritableRoot/#SharedObjects/869W26XX/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/settings.sol
/home/viking/.config/chromium/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/WritableRoot/#SharedObjects/869W26XX/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/#www.flashgames247.com/settings.sol
/home/viking/.config/chromium/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/WritableRoot/#SharedObjects/869W26XX/www.flashgames247.com/games/sushi-cat-2.swf/Sushi-Cat-2.sol
/home/viking/.tor-browser-en/INSTALL/.macromedia/Flash_Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/settings.sol


The standard flash player setting has a settings.sol so that is "normal" but sushi-cat-2.swf/Sushi-Cat-2.sol is put there by a flash game.

So I made myself an alias to remove all of them and checked again

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locate "*.sol"

- and they were gone.

Then I used flash again and those files and directories were generated again and filled with *.sol files...but this time

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locate "*.sol" 

did not show them!

So can this command not be trusted to find any file on your system?

Yes it can! But it needs a database to make that quick search so when you change stuff on the fly like this - you need to update the database.

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su
updatedb

After that locate will find anything again....
...or you can use

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find -name "*.sol"

(which is way slower than locate but more precise)

[viking60]

Find is a very powerful tool that has a lot of flexibility - that means more complexity too.

To find a all files named *.png on your system you would enter this command:

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find -name / "*.png"

To find all png files in /etc you would enter this:

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find /etc -name "*.png"

If you do not enter a location it will start the search from the directory you are in; usually ~/
(remember to use sudo or be root if you are not searching your Home directory)

To combine the search to find both *.png and *.jpg files; you can do something like this:

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find  -name "*.png" -or -name "*.jpg"

(You do not need to write the full word "-or" a simple "-o" will do )

Now let us say you want to only find Directories then you can add "-type" to the equation:

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find -name "Downloads" -type d

The types are d for Directory f for files and l for Links.

So if you use a multinational computer you might want to check several names for the Download directory:

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find  -name "Nedlastinger" -or -name "Downloads" -type d

Mostly I wonder where I saved that #! file that I cannot find again so the type f is much used here:

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find  -name "Document.*" -or -name "document-*" -type f

This will find anything named document or Document with any extension so document icons for your theme etc will also be shown.

Find has a lot more to offer than this - here is a practical example:

We all know that those flash cookies violate your privacy because they will not respect the cookie settings in your browser.
To remove all of those supercookies in your home you can use find to locate them and delete them:

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find ~/ -name "*.sol" -delete

Now they are all gone

[dedanna1029]

I used to use locate a lot - I think I will again. It really is very powerful, and flexible.