Finding files in a directory tree

Finding files in a directory tree

[Gerald.Jean]

Hello,

I have been using Emacs for quite some time and each time I need to find
where, in a directory tree, are located some file(s) I have to go back to
MS Explorer, which is a pain if I want to edit the file(s).  I now know
that the function to do that is "find-name-dired", but I can't figure out
how to use it.  The documentation says:

find-name-dired is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `find-dired'.
(find-name-dired DIR PATTERN)

Search DIR recursively for files matching the globbing pattern PATTERN,
and run dired on those files.
PATTERN is a shell wildcard (not an Emacs regexp) and need not be quoted.
The command run (after changing into DIR) is

    find . -name 'PATTERN' -ls

and if I look-up the documentation for "find" it says:

find is an autoloaded Lisp function in `cl-seq'.
[Arg list not available until function definition is loaded.]
not documented

All this may be very meaningful for old time Emacs-ers and / or Unix-ers but I can't figure out how to specify "PATTERN".  Specifying the
directory is no problem but stuff like "*.ps", for example, doesn't work for PATTERN.  I allways get the following error message:

  c:/latex/:
  find . \( -name '*.ps' \) -exec ls -ld {} \;
  Fichier introuvable - '*.ps'

  find exited abnormally with code 2 at Thu Nov 14 09:44:00

But there is files ending in ".ps" in that directory.


A few examples would be highly appreciated, thanks,

Gérald Jean
Analyste-conseil (statistiques), Actuariat
télephone            : (418) 835-4900 poste (7639)
télecopieur          : (418) 835-6657
courrier électronique: gerald.jean@spgdag.ca

"In God we trust all others must bring data"  W. Edwards Deming

Re: Finding files in a directory tree

[Richard V. Molen]

It sounds like Emacs is finding the M$ find.exe in its search path.

On a Linux system...

M-x find-name-dired <Ret> ~/ <Ret> phone <Ret>

I think you need a unix/Linux version of 'find' that runs on M$. This
version should be found first in the Emacs 'exec-path'.

-- 
Richard V. Molen

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