Get absolute path of files using 'find' command

Question

Is there a way to get absolute path of a file that is being searched?

For example:

find .. -name "filename"

It gives me results like ../filename but I want the full path.

What I need is to find in the parent directory and its children, for a specific file, that I will use in another script later.

Thanks

find $(readlink -f ..) -name "filename". Use readlink in the file path for ease. — Veno, Mar 03 '23 at 06:50
the comment here using readlink is the best answer by far, but I'll just add that (1) quotes are important in case there's a space in the dir name, and (2) realpath is apparently preferred according to man readlink(1): eg: find "$(realpath ..)" -name "filename" (nb: find ... -printf ... has no option for this, and find ... - exec readlink -f {} \; is suuuuper slow) — michael, Jan 20 '24 at 02:50

score 94 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 13 '22 at 06:10

You can use bash's Tilde Expansion to get the absolute path of the current working directory, this way find prints the absolute path for the results as well:

find ~+ -type f -name "filename"

If executed in ~/Desktop, this is expanded to

find /home/yourusername/Desktop -type f -name "filename"

and prints results like:

/home/yourusername/Desktop/filename

If you want to use this approach with the current working directory’s parent directory you need to cd before calling find:

cd .. && find ~+ -type f -name "filename"

score 39 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 07 '14 at 15:47

39

Try something like:

find "$(cd ..; pwd)" -name "filename"

answered Apr 07 '14 at 15:47

Scrutinizer

614

Thanks, I was just testing $(cd ..; pwd). Here it works OK, but if I do it alone in a Terminal, I can't get the parent dir... I get "Bash: : Is a directory. And if I do $(cd ..; echo "something") I get "something: not a command" – JorgeeFG Apr 07 '14 at 15:52
1

Do you mean like a separate command? Then you would need to leave out the dollar sign: (cd ..; pwd) – Scrutinizer Apr 07 '14 at 15:53
Thanks, that was it. Any reference of why should I remove the $, how does it affect the subshell? – JorgeeFG Apr 07 '14 at 15:56
1

Yes ( ... ) means execute in a subshell, the output gets written to stdout. $( ... ) stands for "command substitution". The latter can be used as if it were a variable expansion. – Scrutinizer Apr 07 '14 at 16:03
find / -name "filename" – Panther Apr 07 '14 at 18:48
@bodhi.zazen : That would list every occurrence from the root down, which is not the requirement and which may give wrong results if there are multiples files present with that name, it is also unnecessarily taxing on the system. – Scrutinizer Apr 08 '14 at 11:32
2

@Scrutinizer - I think you misunderstand how find works. If you use the full path in your search, you get the full path in your output. find /home/your_user -name foo. As OP is using "../" , hard to guess the full path to give in an answer. – Panther Apr 08 '14 at 13:02
@bodhi.zazen If you use / then find starts looking from the root instead of from the directory that the OP specified. Do you understand what pwd does in the suggestion I gave? What is the first character that pwd returns? – Scrutinizer Apr 08 '14 at 14:10
2

@JorgeeFG $(builtin cd ..; pwd) will canel functions, aliases. – Oct 16 '19 at 17:37

score 27 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 23 '17 at 16:05

27

The simplest way is

find "$(pwd -P)" -name "filename"

answered Sep 23 '17 at 16:05

Vivek

379

2

Yes! Or find `pwd -P` -name "filename" – Apollys supports Monica Jul 24 '19 at 00:35
1

this will find files in the current directory not from parent. – Oct 16 '19 at 18:21
@ApollyssupportsMonica nice! but if there are spaces in the path - you need to wrap it in the quotes, so find "pwd -P" -name "..." is more universal :-) – jave.web Sep 09 '23 at 19:15

score 26 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 07 '14 at 15:51

26

Try using the -exec option of find:

find .. -name "filename" -exec readlink -f {} \;

Note: readlink prints the value of a symbolic link or canonical file name.

answered Apr 07 '14 at 15:51

Sylvain Pineau

62,169

2

this will call readlink on every file so it will be very ineffective. – Oct 16 '19 at 18:20
I like the simplicity of this solution but I found xargs to be much faster.............................................. find .. -name "filename" | xargs readlink -f – brotherJ4mes Nov 13 '20 at 16:39

score 11 · Answer 5 · edited Mar 21 '22 at 08:14

11

This worked for me, but will only return the first occurrence.

realpath $(find . -type f -name filename -print -quit)

To get full paths for all occurrences (as suggested by Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy)

find . -type f -name filename -print0 | xargs -0 realpath

edited Mar 21 '22 at 08:14

DawnSong

103

answered Oct 16 '19 at 15:36

Wyrmwood

206
2
5

Previous comment removed, +1, good job @Wyrmwood – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Oct 16 '19 at 20:51
Exactly what I needed (just the first occurrence and to print the full path including the filename in the output. Thank you Sir – Kyle Bridenstine Apr 03 '20 at 18:09
1

this doesn't work for files with whitespaces – peixotorms May 21 '20 at 11:19
@peixotorms -print0 does the trick, and I corrected the answer. – DawnSong Mar 20 '22 at 17:37
xargs 0 is a feature I have used recently for values with embedded single quotes, Nice@DawnSong – Wyrmwood Mar 21 '22 at 16:54

score 6 · Answer 6 · edited Nov 05 '21 at 14:37

6

Try this way:

find $PWD -name "filename"

edited Nov 05 '21 at 14:37

BeastOfCaerbannog

14,585

answered Nov 04 '21 at 18:17

Lakmal Dissanayaka

61

The question has .., not .. – Carsten S Jan 09 '22 at 12:08

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 15 '22 at 23:42

Unless I totally misunderstand, it is as simple as this:

find $(realpath .) -name 'river.jpg'

By specifying the full real path as a start, find will implicitly output this full path as a search result.

The bash command realpath converts the current (or any other directory as ./images) into its real path). the $(realpath .) converts the output to a variable, as if it was typed manually, e.g. /home/myusername

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 13 '22 at 12:43

2

Try with -printf. This also works with files with blank spaces.

find .. -name "filename" -printf $PWD/"%f\n"

answered Jan 13 '22 at 12:43

Alejandro Galera

123

score 1 · Answer 9 · 2019-10-17T03:22:50.670

Removing last directory component with parameter Expansion.

find "${PWD%/*}" -name 'filename'

An example of how you can use mapfile to save output from find to an indexed array for later use.

mapfile -t -d '' < <(find ${PWD%/*} -name 'filename' -print0)

(if no array name is specified, MAPFILE will be the default array name).

for i in "${MAPFILE[@]}"; do
    echo "$((n++)) $i"
done

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 07 '14 at 18:16

1

Also using PWD can show you the full directory. Pwd will show you all your directorys you are in like the expanding of filename. Hope this helped.

answered Apr 07 '14 at 18:16

Sir_Dippingsauce

66
10

Get absolute path of files using 'find' command

10 Answers10

Linked