How to use grep for finding file location in linux machines?

Question

How can search for a file in ubuntu os with grep command ?

Let's say, I want to find CMakeList.txt, how to write grep command to find the existence of this file ?

You mean to say you want to recursively search down directories for this file? — nu11p01n73R, Jan 14 '17 at 05:33

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 14 '17 at 07:14

grep is not the right tool meant for this, use find with -name to specify the file name you want to get,

find . -type f -name "CMakeList.txt" -print

The above command searches for the file recursively from the current folder and all the sub-directories below.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '17 at 08:58

0

If this is on a standard Linux installation, you might also try

locate CMakeFile.txt

If it is correctly installed, locate uses a cached index and is often much faster than a find from root directory.

answered Jan 14 '17 at 08:58

Lars Fischer

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 14 '17 at 05:40

-1

Go into root directory, or a folder that you know your file is in, then

dir "CMakeFile.txt"

Will find it and its location. Works for me, at least.

answered Jan 14 '17 at 05:40

3 Answers3