ff-find 1.0.5

Easily search and process files by names.

Easily search and process files.

If you need to search files by their contents, or search for their contents, please look at ack or pss. These are better suited for this kind of task.

Current stable version

1.0.5

Why ff and not find?

Just because I find that most of my searches was:

find . -iname '*name*'

And it’s easier to me to enter:

ff name

Also, my find have sometimes problems with non ascii names:

% find /tmp -name '*GÖS*'
%

And with ff:

% ff '*GÖS*' /tmp
/tmp/eee_GÖS_från_förstår_pas
/tmp/eee_GÖS_från_pas_förstår_qq
/tmp/pas_GÖS_från_förstår
%

it just works! :)

Basic usage

ff passwd

Search for all files and directories in current directory and below, which is match to pattern: *passwd*.

ff -B passwd

Search for all files and directories in current directory and below, which is match to pattern: *passwd.

ff -E passwd

Search for all files and directories in current directory and below, which is match to pattern: passwd*.

ff -EB passwd

Advanced usage

ff -p pa -s /tmp --shell-exec -x '[ -f "{path}" ] && mkdir -p /tmp{dirname}; cp -r "{path}" "/tmp{path}"'

Find all files and directories in /tmp that match expression: *pa*, and copy them (with original directories hierarchy!) to /tmp.

So powerful!

Magic pattern

It’s form of pattern known good for Perl or AWK lovers :)

If patterns is in general form:

mode/pattern/modifier

(decribed more in full usage below), then it is parsed and used in a little other manner.

Instead of arguments --regexp or --fuzzy, you can pass it in mode part of pattern. Next there is delimiter, which usually is / (backslash), but there can be more characters, described in Usage section.

After that is a pattern, next delimiter again, and then modifiers (again, modifiers are described in Usage section).

Some examples:

Search for all files and directories in current directory and below, which is match to pattern: passwd.

ff f/pwd/

Search for all files and directories in current directory and below, which name contains letters ‘p’, ‘w’, ‘d’, with any other characters between them.

ff g/^(chk)?passwd/

Search for all files and directories in current directory and below, which name starts from ‘chkpasswd’ or ‘passwd’.

Configuration file

ff recognizes 2 configuration files: user-wide and project-wide. Both can specify the same things and have identical syntax (ini files). User-wide one is located in $HOME/.ff.rc, and project-wide is located in current directory (ie. projects root). Example file is located at (github)[https://github.com/mysz/ff/blob/master/ff.rc].

Plugins

Plugins are the way to easily extend capabilities of ff. Currently there is only support for plugins allowing to extend tests made on files list. In future, there is plan to add support for plugins allowing to make some actions on found files (currently is built-in plugin: --shell), for example modifying, copying or anything else).

ff search for plugins in user’s home directory, but there is posibility to tell him about the other.. By default, ff search for plugins in:

• ~/.ff/plugins

And using switch --plugins-path you can tell ff about other plugins location.

You can also pass argument to plugins. For example, in size plugin (bundled with ff), You must to tell the plugin what size of file You expect:

`ff pas --test size:=5k`

Above example will find every file with pas part in its name, and its size is exactly 5 kibibytes. More about size plugin in projects wiki.

Writing plugins

Plugins are written in Python, and are simple Python modules with at least plugin_action callable specified. Plugins are imported, and plugin_action must return True or False to tell ff that given found object meets expectations, and should be returned.

ff recognize and use only 3 objects in plugin:

• plugin_action - (REQUIRED) [callable] must return True od False. Must recognize 3 arguments:

  • name - name of plugin

  • argument - argument passed by user

  • path - absolute path to tested object

• PLUGIN_DESCR - (OPTIONAL) [string or callable] short descr of plugin, printed when ff is called with switch --help-test-plugins

• PLUGIN_HELP - (OPTIONAL) [string or callable] full help for plugin, printed when ff is called with switch --help-test-plugins TEST_NAME

Plugin file also must have special name, and be placed in directory recognized by ff (see: [plugins][plugins]). Name of file is built with three parts, connected with underscore: * ffplugin - fixed prefix * test - type of plugin (currently only test plugins are recignized) * NAME - name of plugin

And as Python module, must and with .py extension :)

Plugin must validate input data (argument), and raise FFPluginError exception with approbiate message on any error. Plugin shouldn’t raise any other exceptions. There is one caveat with this: FFPluginError exception is declared inside ff! When given plugin is imported, it is monkeypatched and FFPluginError exception is injected into it.

There is an example plugin, which allow us to search for files in specified size. Is in project repository in directory plugins. You can use it as a base for your own plugins :)

Installation

ff should work on any platform where Python is available, it means Linux, Windows, MacOS X etc. There is no dependencies, plain Python power :)

To install, you can use pip:

pip install ff

Voila!

Usage

usage: ff [-h] [--print0] [--ignorecase] [--source source] [--pattern PATTERN]
          [--regexp] [--fuzzy] [--depth DEPTH] [--path-search]
          [--regex-multiline] [--regex-dotall] [--begin] [--end]
          [--invert-match] [--mode MODE] [--exec COMMAND] [--prefix]
          [--prefix-dirs PREFIX_DIRS] [--prefix-files PREFIX_FILES]
          [--no-display] [--no-colorize] [--verbose-exec] [--interactive-exec]
          [--shell-exec] [--vcs] [--exclude-path EXCLUDED_PATH] [--test TESTS]
          [--plugins-path PLUGINS_PATH] [--version]
          [--help-test-plugins [TEST_NAME[,TEST2_NAME]]]
          [--show-plugins-paths]
          [pattern] [source [source ...]]

Easily search and process files.

positional arguments:
  pattern               pattern to search
  source                optional source (if missing, use current directory)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --print0, -0          split results by binary zero instead of new line
                        (useful to work with xargs)
  --ignorecase, -i, --ignore-case
                        ignore case when match pattern to paths
  --source source, -s source
                        optional, see: source above
  --pattern PATTERN, -p PATTERN
                        optional, see: pattern above
  --regexp, -g          treat pattern as regular expression (uses Python
                        regexp engine)
  --fuzzy, -f           pattern defines only set and order of characters used
                        in filename
  --depth DEPTH, -D DEPTH
                        how deep we should search (default: -1, means
                        infinite)
  --path-search, -q     search in full path, instead of bare name of item
  --regex-multiline, -l
                        modify meta characters: "^" and "$" behaviour when
                        pattern is regular expression. See:
                        http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html#re.MULTILINE
  --regex-dotall, -d    modify meta character: "." behaviour when pattern is
                        regular expression. See:
                        http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html#re.DOTALL
  --begin, -B           match pattern to begin of item name (ignored in regexp
                        mode)
  --end, -E             match pattern to end of item name (ignored in regexp
                        mode)
  --invert-match, -v, -r
                        find objects that do *not* match pattern
  --mode MODE, -m MODE  allow to choose to search for "files" only, "dirs", or
                        "all"
  --exec COMMAND, -x COMMAND
                        execute some command on every found item. In command,
                        placeholders: {path}, {dirname}, {basename} are
                        replaced with correct value
  --prefix              add prefix "dr: " (directory) or "fl: " (file) to
                        every found item
  --prefix-dirs PREFIX_DIRS
                        prefix for matched directories
  --prefix-files PREFIX_FILES
                        prefix for matched files
  --no-display          don't display element (useful with --exec argument)
  --no-colorize         Colorize output
  --verbose-exec        show command before execute it
  --interactive-exec    ask before execute command on every item
  --shell-exec          execute command from --exec argument in shell (with
                        shell expansion etc)
  --vcs                 do not skip VCS directories (.git, .svn etc)
  --exclude-path EXCLUDED_PATH, -c EXCLUDED_PATH
                        skip given paths from scanning
  --test TESTS, -t TESTS
                        additional tests, available by plugins (see
                        annotations below or --help-test-plugins)
  --plugins-path PLUGINS_PATH
                        additional path where to search plugins (see
                        annotations below)
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  --help-test-plugins [TEST_NAME[,TEST2_NAME]]
                        display help for installed test plugins
  --show-plugins-paths  Show recognized plugins paths and exit

Pattern, provided as positional argument (not with --pattern) can be provided
in special form (called: magic pattern). It allows to more "nerdish"
(or "perlish" :) ) way to control `ff` behavior.

The general pattern for magic pattern is:

    mode/pattern/modifier

where:
    mode - is one of 'p' (--pattern), 'g' - (--regexp) or 'f' (--fuzzy)
    / - is delimiter:
        * one of: '/', '!', '@', '#', '%', '|', and then start and end
            delimiter must be the same
        * one of: '{', '[', '(', '<', and the end delimiter must be the
            closing one (ex. '}' if start is '{')
    pattern - any pattern, processed in a way specified with 'mode'
    modifier - one of: 'i' (--ignore-case), 'm' (--regex-multiline),
        's' (--regex-dotall), 'v' (not used currently), 'r' (--invert-match)

There is also ability to extend capabilities of `ff` by plugins. Plugins are
run with switch --test and then plugin name with optional plugin argument:

    --test plugin_name:plugin_arg

There can be used more then one plugin at once.

Authors:
    Marcin Sztolcman <[e-mail]> // http://urzenia.net

HomePage:
    http://mysz.github.io/ff/

Authors

Marcin Sztolcman [e-mail]

Contact

If you like or dislike this software, please do not hesitate to tell me about this me via email ([e-mail]).

If you find bug or have an idea to enhance this tool, please use GitHub’s issues.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2013 Marcin Sztolcman

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

ChangeLog

v1.0.5

• use README.rst for Pypi

v1.0.4

• fixes for Pypi

v1.0.3

• fixes for Pypi

v1.0.2

• fixes for Pypi

v1.0.1

• fixes for Pypi

v1.0.0

• backward incompatible: magic pattern doesn’t recognize ‘q’ flag for ‘path-search’ mode, flag –path-search must be passed explicitly

• new option: –depth - limit searching to this depth

• new option: –colorize

• new: parse and recognize configuration files

• new: added ability to install via pip

• changed versioning format: use SemVer

• code cleanups and many refactorizations/rewrites

• paths are now normalized before comparisons of excluded paths

• parse regexps with UNICODE flag

• ‘?’ and ‘+’ are now valid delimiters in magic pattern

• ignore case of –mode option

• documentation improvements

• more tests

• improved fuzzy search

• better validation of arguments

• improved error messages

• improved help

• better interoperability: do not hardcode new line characters or path delimiters

• do not allow for duplicating modifiers

• FIX: do not crash on unknown characters, just replace them

• FIX: do not crash on printing unknown characters

• added simple Makefile

• improved config for pylint

• added config for versionner

v0.5

• ability to run plugins for tests (with first plugin: size)

• many improvements to proper handling UTF-8

• many improvements for work in Python3

• improved PEP8 compatibility

• refactored code

• added –version switch

• removed expanding shell variables when execute external command if no –shell-exec is given

v.0.4

• added changelog

• added fuzzy-search mode

• added ‘magic pattern’ mode

• -r argument is now an alias to -v

• better handling unicode characters in paths

• handling CTRL-C

• added modifier: –path-search

v0.3

• use argparse instead of getopt to parse options

• allow to exclude path from search

• improved help and documentation

v0.2

• added option ‘shell-exec’ - allow to exec programs with shell expansion

• exec: add shell variables expansion

• by default, skip VCS directories

• added option ‘print0’ - delimit entries with binary 0, as for xargs

• added options ‘interactive-exec’ - ask before every exec

• much more powerfull exec engine

• added option ‘no-display’ - do not display results (useful with –exec)

• added option ‘verbose-exec’ - show executed command

• added option ‘invert-match’ - like in grep

• improved help and documentation

• cleanups in code

v0.1

• initial version