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4.12 How can I quickly find a file if I don't know its directory?

The Unix find command on the NeXT has the capability of quickly searching a database of all the files. This database is located in /etc/find.codes and has to be generated periodically. You can automatically generate this database, say twice a week at 3:15 a.m., by adding this line to your file /etc/crontab.local (you might have to create this file).

After this has run, you can quickly find any file from a terminal by typing find where is a part of the file name you want (it is case-sensitive).

[Carl Edman ] adds:

Find still works under 3.0, but now has to match the entire filename (including the path) for a match to be recognized i.e. where under 2.x you would have find foobar, under 3.0 you have find '*foobar*' (The ' are necessary to prevent the shell from expanding the wildcards itself).

[From: Geert Jan van Oldenborgh ]

I find the following script in /usr/local/bin very handy to bring back the behavior that God Intended find to have:

• (weiter mit 4.13 Mail.app suddenly stopped working!)