4

I have a file located at folderA/folderB/myFile. This however is a relative address and I don't know where on my computer it is. myFile has a very generic name and searching just for it will give me hundreds of results. So I am trying to search for the entire path.

After looking here, I tried these options:

find / -path folderA/folderB/myFile 2>/dev/null

find / -path "folderA/folderB/myFile" 2>/dev/null

However, neither returns any results even though I know with certainty that the file exists.

So how can I search for a file using its containing folder structure?

Kamil Maciorowski
  • 81,893
bsky
  • 185

1 Answers1

9

In your examples folderA/folderB/myFile is matched against the entire path. You need a wildcard, something like: 

find / -path "*/folderA/folderB/myFile"

Also note quoting is important. In general unquoted * triggers shell globbing (example).

Kamil Maciorowski
  • 81,893