Find and Grep with Subversion and Cygwin

Subversion (SVN) creates .svn directories to store information. These get in the way of the Unix/Cywin find command. Here's a Bash shell script that will ignore all of the .svn directories for you.

#!/bin/bash
#
#.Name
#   sfind
#.Title
#   Find Command for Subversion Workspaces
#.Author
#   Don Mitchell (10/2005)
#.What
#   Strips out the .svn directories when using the Unix find command.
#

if [ $# -lt 2 ]
then
    echo Usage: $(basename $0) [path] [expression...]
fi

path="$1"
shift

find "${path}" ! -wholename '*/.svn/*' -a ! -wholename '*~' \
    -a ! -wholename "*/.*.swp" -a "$@"

I put this script in my PATH and then add a few aliases to make it easier to invoke.

alias sf='sfind'

This alias just abbreviates the actual name I gave the shell script. I should have just renamed the shell script. Example: sf . -name "*Foo*.java"

alias sff='sfind . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep'

This alias, sff, combines grep with find, grepping for the specified pattern in all files under the current directory. Example: sff SOME_CONSTANT_NAME

alias sfg='sfind . -name "*.java" -print0 | xargs -0 grep'

This alias, does the same thing as my sff alias, but it only greps in Java files and ignores everything else.

• Example: sfg someMethodName


• Example: sfg -l someMethodName # list just the file names containing that mehtod

alias sfn='sfind . -name '

This alias is another quick shortcut, but I rarely use it. For example, sfn "*Dao.java" will list all of the files under the current directory that end in Dao.java.