Make 'find -regextype egrep' as alias

up vote
1
down vote

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I am just starting learning regex and want to use it instead of others everywhere for practice.

I encounter such a situation when tried to find files with extensions sh or md

$ find . regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
.
./bogus.py
./cofollow.py
./data8.txt
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./cobroadcast2.py

Unfortunately it output /bogus.py,

I notice the BRE rules and tried escape ()

$ find . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
#get nothing return

After series of search, I got -regextype solution Regular Expressions - Finding Files

$ find . -regextype posix-extended -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

$ find . -regextype egrep -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

Additionally, a nice modular solution

$ find -type f | egrep ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

However, there is a shortcut in BSD to accomplish such a task
with a -E predicate.

$ /usr/bin/find -E . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

I am determined to exclusively take the GNU tool in order to make my codes and skills portable.

So I am starting to alias 'find -regextype egrep`,

Unfortunately find obtain the $1 as path.

How could I solve them problem in a handy way?

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
1
down vote

favorite

I am just starting learning regex and want to use it instead of others everywhere for practice.

I encounter such a situation when tried to find files with extensions sh or md

$ find . regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
.
./bogus.py
./cofollow.py
./data8.txt
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./cobroadcast2.py

Unfortunately it output /bogus.py,

I notice the BRE rules and tried escape ()

$ find . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
#get nothing return

After series of search, I got -regextype solution Regular Expressions - Finding Files

$ find . -regextype posix-extended -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

$ find . -regextype egrep -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

Additionally, a nice modular solution

$ find -type f | egrep ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

However, there is a shortcut in BSD to accomplish such a task
with a -E predicate.

$ /usr/bin/find -E . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

I am determined to exclusively take the GNU tool in order to make my codes and skills portable.

So I am starting to alias 'find -regextype egrep`,

Unfortunately find obtain the $1 as path.

How could I solve them problem in a handy way?

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
1
down vote

favorite

I am just starting learning regex and want to use it instead of others everywhere for practice.

I encounter such a situation when tried to find files with extensions sh or md

$ find . regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
.
./bogus.py
./cofollow.py
./data8.txt
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./cobroadcast2.py

Unfortunately it output /bogus.py,

I notice the BRE rules and tried escape ()

$ find . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
#get nothing return

After series of search, I got -regextype solution Regular Expressions - Finding Files

$ find . -regextype posix-extended -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

$ find . -regextype egrep -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

Additionally, a nice modular solution

$ find -type f | egrep ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

However, there is a shortcut in BSD to accomplish such a task
with a -E predicate.

$ /usr/bin/find -E . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

I am determined to exclusively take the GNU tool in order to make my codes and skills portable.

So I am starting to alias 'find -regextype egrep`,

Unfortunately find obtain the $1 as path.

How could I solve them problem in a handy way?

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

I am just starting learning regex and want to use it instead of others everywhere for practice.

I encounter such a situation when tried to find files with extensions sh or md

$ find . regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
.
./bogus.py
./cofollow.py
./data8.txt
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./cobroadcast2.py

Unfortunately it output /bogus.py,

I notice the BRE rules and tried escape ()

$ find . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
#get nothing return

After series of search, I got -regextype solution Regular Expressions - Finding Files

$ find . -regextype posix-extended -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

$ find . -regextype egrep -iregex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

Additionally, a nice modular solution

$ find -type f | egrep ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh
./table_regex_bat.md

However, there is a shortcut in BSD to accomplish such a task
with a -E predicate.

$ /usr/bin/find -E . -regex ".*.(sh|md)$"
./example.sh
./longest_word_2.sh
./posit_param.sh

I am determined to exclusively take the GNU tool in order to make my codes and skills portable.

So I am starting to alias 'find -regextype egrep`,

Unfortunately find obtain the $1 as path.

How could I solve them problem in a handy way?

bash

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

edited 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

asked 4 hours ago

Sawajiri

1926

New contributor

Sawajiri is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

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2 Answers
2

active

oldest

votes

up vote
3
down vote

accepted

Don't use an alias to pass arguments around. They are not portable and useful only on interactive shells. Use a function instead and pass the arguments as paths needed

regexFind() 
 (( "$#" ))

and call the function as

regexFind "/home/foo/bar"

Also to add to your findings, note that bash also has an intrinsic way to glob files. You just need to enable a couple of extended shell options to make it work. The -s enables the option and -u disables it.

The nullglob allows to ignore un-expanded glob results as valid matches. So assuming you want to match files ending with *.sh and *.md, you just need to navigate to that particular directory and do

shopt -s nullglob
fileList=(*.sh)
fileList+=(*.md)
shopt -u nullglob

and print the results to see below. Remember to quote the expansion to prevent the filenames from undergoing Word-Splitting.

printf '%sn' "$fileList[@]"

edited 4 hours ago

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
1
down vote

find . -type f ( -name '*.sh' -o -name '*.md' )

This would work with all implementations of find since it doesn't require support for regular expression matching.

To make this more flexible:

suffixfind () (
 dir=$1
 shift

 for suf do
 set -- "$@" -o -name "*.$suf"
 shift
 done
 shift

 find "$dir" -type f ( "$@" )
)

This helper shell function (which would work in any sh-like shell) would pick out the first command line argument and put it in the variable dir. Then it would construct a list of -name "*.<suf1>" -o -name "*.<suf2>" (etc.) with all the filename suffixes on the function's command line before calling find with that list to find files in or under $dir.

You would use it like

suffixfind /usr sh md txt

to find all regular files with names ending in .sh, .md or .txt in or under the path /usr.

About your mentioning of GNU tools and portability: Note that GNU tools on non-Linux systems are sometimes available, but with a g prefix to the tool names. GNU find would therefore be available as gfind to distinguish it from the native find implementation on the system.

Your "GNU portable" approach would therefore have to test whether gfind was available before testing whether find is in fact GNU find. Not until you've done that (possibly by testing the return status and output of find --version) can you be comfortable in knowing that you are dealing with GNU find.

edited 16 mins ago

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

And a big portability problem is that you cannot e.g. access GNU find under it's native name gfind if you are on Linux. So you are right, the portable way is to use POSIX features only - in special if you can do the job with POSIX features.
â€“Â schily
23 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

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2 Answers
2

active

oldest

votes

2 Answers
2

active

oldest

votes

up vote
3
down vote

accepted

Don't use an alias to pass arguments around. They are not portable and useful only on interactive shells. Use a function instead and pass the arguments as paths needed

regexFind() 
 (( "$#" ))

and call the function as

regexFind "/home/foo/bar"

shopt -s nullglob
fileList=(*.sh)
fileList+=(*.md)
shopt -u nullglob

and print the results to see below. Remember to quote the expansion to prevent the filenames from undergoing Word-Splitting.

printf '%sn' "$fileList[@]"

edited 4 hours ago

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
3
down vote

accepted

Don't use an alias to pass arguments around. They are not portable and useful only on interactive shells. Use a function instead and pass the arguments as paths needed

regexFind() 
 (( "$#" ))

and call the function as

regexFind "/home/foo/bar"

shopt -s nullglob
fileList=(*.sh)
fileList+=(*.md)
shopt -u nullglob

and print the results to see below. Remember to quote the expansion to prevent the filenames from undergoing Word-Splitting.

printf '%sn' "$fileList[@]"

edited 4 hours ago

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
3
down vote

accepted

Don't use an alias to pass arguments around. They are not portable and useful only on interactive shells. Use a function instead and pass the arguments as paths needed

regexFind() 
 (( "$#" ))

and call the function as

regexFind "/home/foo/bar"

shopt -s nullglob
fileList=(*.sh)
fileList+=(*.md)
shopt -u nullglob

and print the results to see below. Remember to quote the expansion to prevent the filenames from undergoing Word-Splitting.

printf '%sn' "$fileList[@]"

edited 4 hours ago

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

Don't use an alias to pass arguments around. They are not portable and useful only on interactive shells. Use a function instead and pass the arguments as paths needed

regexFind() 
 (( "$#" ))

and call the function as

regexFind "/home/foo/bar"

shopt -s nullglob
fileList=(*.sh)
fileList+=(*.md)
shopt -u nullglob

and print the results to see below. Remember to quote the expansion to prevent the filenames from undergoing Word-Splitting.

printf '%sn' "$fileList[@]"

edited 4 hours ago

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

edited 4 hours ago

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

answered 4 hours ago

Inian

3,338822

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
1
down vote

find . -type f ( -name '*.sh' -o -name '*.md' )

This would work with all implementations of find since it doesn't require support for regular expression matching.

To make this more flexible:

suffixfind () (
 dir=$1
 shift

 for suf do
 set -- "$@" -o -name "*.$suf"
 shift
 done
 shift

 find "$dir" -type f ( "$@" )
)

You would use it like

suffixfind /usr sh md txt

to find all regular files with names ending in .sh, .md or .txt in or under the path /usr.

edited 16 mins ago

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

And a big portability problem is that you cannot e.g. access GNU find under it's native name gfind if you are on Linux. So you are right, the portable way is to use POSIX features only - in special if you can do the job with POSIX features.
â€“Â schily
23 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
1
down vote

find . -type f ( -name '*.sh' -o -name '*.md' )

This would work with all implementations of find since it doesn't require support for regular expression matching.

To make this more flexible:

suffixfind () (
 dir=$1
 shift

 for suf do
 set -- "$@" -o -name "*.$suf"
 shift
 done
 shift

 find "$dir" -type f ( "$@" )
)

You would use it like

suffixfind /usr sh md txt

to find all regular files with names ending in .sh, .md or .txt in or under the path /usr.

edited 16 mins ago

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

And a big portability problem is that you cannot e.g. access GNU find under it's native name gfind if you are on Linux. So you are right, the portable way is to use POSIX features only - in special if you can do the job with POSIX features.
â€“Â schily
23 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

up vote
1
down vote

find . -type f ( -name '*.sh' -o -name '*.md' )

This would work with all implementations of find since it doesn't require support for regular expression matching.

To make this more flexible:

suffixfind () (
 dir=$1
 shift

 for suf do
 set -- "$@" -o -name "*.$suf"
 shift
 done
 shift

 find "$dir" -type f ( "$@" )
)

You would use it like

suffixfind /usr sh md txt

to find all regular files with names ending in .sh, .md or .txt in or under the path /usr.

edited 16 mins ago

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

find . -type f ( -name '*.sh' -o -name '*.md' )

This would work with all implementations of find since it doesn't require support for regular expression matching.

To make this more flexible:

suffixfind () (
 dir=$1
 shift

 for suf do
 set -- "$@" -o -name "*.$suf"
 shift
 done
 shift

 find "$dir" -type f ( "$@" )
)

You would use it like

suffixfind /usr sh md txt

to find all regular files with names ending in .sh, .md or .txt in or under the path /usr.

edited 16 mins ago

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

edited 16 mins ago

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

answered 1 hour ago

Kusalananda

113k15216344

And a big portability problem is that you cannot e.g. access GNU find under it's native name gfind if you are on Linux. So you are right, the portable way is to use POSIX features only - in special if you can do the job with POSIX features.
â€“Â schily
23 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

And a big portability problem is that you cannot e.g. access GNU find under it's native name gfind if you are on Linux. So you are right, the portable way is to use POSIX features only - in special if you can do the job with POSIX features.
â€“Â schily
23 mins ago

And a big portability problem is that you cannot e.g. access GNU find under it's native name gfind if you are on Linux. So you are right, the portable way is to use POSIX features only - in special if you can do the job with POSIX features.
â€“Â schily
23 mins ago

add a commentÂ |Â

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