Course/Navigating the Filesystem/Finding Files

Finding Files

Use find to search the filesystem by name, type, and other criteria.

When you know a file exists somewhere but can't remember where, find is your search tool. It walks through a directory tree and prints every file or directory matching your criteria. It's one of the most powerful commands in the terminal.

find . -name "README.md"       # find by exact name
find . -name "*.js"            # find by pattern (all .js files)
find . -type d -name "src"     # find directories named "src"
find / -type f -name ".env"    # search the entire filesystem

The first argument to find is where to start searching. A dot . means "start from here" (the current directory). You can also give an absolute path like /home/user. The -name flag matches filenames, and -type filters by type — f for files, d for directories.

Another useful command is which. It tells you the full path of a command's executable. Running which ls shows you where the ls program lives on disk. This is handy for debugging path issues or figuring out which version of a tool you're running.

which ls
# /bin/ls

which node
# /usr/local/bin/node

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Use quotes around patterns with wildcards (like ".js") to prevent the shell from expanding them before find sees them. Without quotes, the shell might try to match .js in your current directory first.

WIN

Windows uses dir /s /b filename for recursive searches, or where instead of which. PowerShell offers Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter "*.js". In WSL, find and which work as shown.

There's a hidden configuration file called .secret-config buried somewhere in the projects directory. Track it down.

Practice