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Bob Perez
Asked: 2012-06-20 09:12:04 +0800 CST

How can I recursively search for directory names with a particular string where the string is only part of the directory name

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How can I recursively search for directory names with a particular string where the string is only part of the directory name?

For example: the directory name is "8.0.3-99966_en", but I want to recursively search for directories with the string "99966".

grep

4 Answers

  1. You can use the find command:

    find YOUR_STARTING_DIRECTORY -type d -name "*99966*" -print

    Example:

    find ~ -type d -name "*99966*" -print

    should find all directories (-type d) starting from your home directory (~)that have their names containing the string "99966" (-name "*99966*") and output them (-print).

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  2. To avoid all of the "Permission denied" results, you can use:

    find / -type d -name "*99966*" -print 2>/dev/null

    See this article on null device and this one on standard streams for more info.

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  3. You can pipe the output to grep to have it highlight the directory name
    Something like 

    find / -type d | grep "directory name"

    The / indicates to search the whole computer

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  4. An easy way to do this is to use find | egrep string. If there are too many hits, then use the -type d flag for find. Run the command at the start of the directory tree you want to search, or you will have to supply the directory as an argument to find as well.

    Another way to do this is to use ls -laR | egrep ^d.

    And the locate command also comes in handy: locate string

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