# ff — Find Files
[](https://travis-ci.org/jakwings/ff-find)
[](https://crates.io/crates/ff-find)
ff: Just my own fork of [fd] with many incompatible changes. (**unstable**)
[fd]: https://github.com/sharkdp/fd/tree/7ecb6239504dff9eb9e9359521ece6744ef04f67
## Installation
```
cargo install ff-find
```
or when SIMD acceleration is possible:
```
cargo install --features simd-accel ff-find
```
## Usage
ff lets you search for files and directories with a [glob pattern][glob].
```bash
ff $HOME '*.txt'
```
More power (and danger) come with the --regex switch to use [regex patterns](#References).
```bash
ff --regex $HOME '\.txt$'
```
Unicode support:
```bash
ff . '?' # doesn't match filename π
ff --unicode . '?' # matches filename π
ff --regex . '^.$' # doesn't match filename π
ff --regex --unicode . '^.$' # matches filename π
```
This is because the pattern matches byte strings by default.
If you have a disk or partition for backup service, use the --mount flag to
prevent deletion for files on it:
```bash
# skip any directory or files on another disk or partition
ff $HOME .DS_Store --mount --exec rm -v --
# could be faster by working in parallel with xargs
ff $HOME .DS_Store --mount -0 | xargs -0 rm -v --
```
## Help
```
USAGE:
ff [OPTIONS] [<DIRECTORY> [PATTERN]]
OPTIONS:
-g, --glob
Match file paths with a glob pattern.
This is the default behavior.
-r, --regex
Match file paths with a regex pattern.
-u, --unicode
Turn on Unicode support for search patterns.
Character classes are not limited to ASCII. Only valid UTF-8 byte
sequences can be matched by the search pattern.
-i, --ignore-case
Perform a case-insensitive search.
-s, --case-sensitive
Perform a case-sensitive search.
This is the default behavior.
-p, --full-path
Match the absolute path instead of only the filename or directory
name.
-L, --follow
Follow symlinks and traverse the symlinked directories.
-M, --mount
Do not descend into directories on another disk or partition, as a
symlink or normal directory may lead to a file on another file
system.
-0, --print0
Each search result is terminated with NUL instead of LF when
printed.
This option does not affect --exec.
-A, --absolute-path
Relative paths for output are transformed into absolute paths.
An absolute path may not be the real path due to symlinks.
-S, --sort-path
The search results will be sorted by pathname before output.
Sort by lexicographically comparing the byte strings of path
components. The search depth is also taken into comsideration.
This option will also force --exec to use a single thread for
processing.
-a, --all
All files and directories are searched.
By default, files and directories of which the names start with a
dot "." are ignored in the search.
Files ignored by patterns in .(git)ignore files are still excluded.
-I, --no-ignore
Show search results from files and directories that would otherwise
be ignored by .(git)ignore files.
-m, --multiplex
Multiplex stdin of this program so that every executed command
shares the same input.
Interactive input is disabled by caching, even if the commands run
sequentially.
-t, --type <filetype>
Filter the search by type: [default: any]
directory or d: directories
file or f: regular files
symlink or l: symbolic links
executable or x: executable files
Executable files are regular files with execute permission bits set
or are symlinks pointing to the former, which means they are likely
programs that can be loaded and run on the operating system.
-d, --max-depth <number>
Limit the directory traversal to a given depth.
-c, --color <when>
Declare when to use color for the pattern match output:
auto: use colors for interactive console [default]
never: do not use colorized output
always: always use colorized output
-j, --threads <number>
The number of threads to use for searching and command execution.
0 means [default: number of available CPU cores]
--max-buffer-time <milliseconds>
The amount of time (in milliseconds) for the search results to be
buffered and sorted before streaming.
This option is mostly a stub for testing purpose.
-x, --exec <program [argument]... [;]>
Run the given command for each search result.
The search result can be represented by a pair of braces {} in the
command. If the command does not contain any {}, then a {} will be
appended as an argument to the program. A single semicolon ; will
terminate the argument list.
With --threads=1 commands will run sequentially. When multi-
threading is enabled and multiplexing is not enabled, commands
will not receive input from an interactive console.
If not running with a single thread, each output of the command will
be buffered, reordered (printed to stdout before stderr) and
synchronized to avoid overlap.
-v, --verbose
Show warnings about file permissions, loops caused by symlinks, I/O
errors, invalid file content, etc.
-h, --help
Print help information.
Use --help to show details and full list of options.
-V, --version
Print version information.
ARGS:
<DIRECTORY>
The root directory for the search. [optional]
If omitted, search the current working directory.
<PATTERN>
The search pattern, a regex or glob pattern. [optional]
The default patterns for regex and glob are ^ and * respectively.
NOTE: If the value of environment variable PWD is the path of a symlink pointing
to the current working directory, it will be used for resolving the absolute
path of a relative path.
```
## References
* Glob Syntax: https://docs.rs/ff-find/latest/globset/#syntax
* Note: ff uses a variant of [globset][glob] which behaves slightly differently
for "backslash escape", i.e. `\<char>` drops the `\` and removes special
effect of a character ANYWHERE.
* Regex Syntax: https://docs.rs/regex/1.1.2/regex/#syntax
Please note that the nitty-gritty of supported syntax may change in the future.
There are still some todos noted in the source code.
[glob]: https://docs.rs/globset/latest/globset/#syntax
## License
Copyright (c) 2017 ff developers
Copyright (c) 2017 fd developers
All files in the project are licensed under the [Apache License], Version 2.0
or the [MIT License], at your option.
[Apache License]: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
[MIT License]: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT