UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Cannot find how to list the directory structure of a volume recursively. Do not want the files reported. Say I have 100 directories and 10,000 files, I do not want 10,000 lines of output. (If this is relevant, I am using the terminal on my OSX Mac). I hope this is easy - there should be an easy way. -- jim

Code:

find <base directory> -type d

eg:

Code:

find /export -type d

Thank you Reborg. Since this is a dummies group, could you explain why number (1) works but numbers (2) and (3) don't work?

(1)
guests-Computer:/volumes/white guest$ pwd
/volumes/white
guests-Computer:/volumes/white guest$ find . -type d
.
./pho_pp
./pho_pp/Test_dir
./pho_pers
(snip)

(2)
guests-Computer:/volumes/white guest$ pwd
/volumes/white
guests-Computer:/volumes/white guest$ find /white -type d
find: /white: No such file or directory

(3)
guests-Computer:/volumes guest$ pwd
/volumes
guests-Computer:/volumes guest$ find /white -type d
find: /white: No such file or directory

In (1), you specify that the find command is to search in the pwd. In (2) and (3), the find command is supposed to search in the /white directory which does not exist. In fact, it clearly says that in the output doesn't it.

To make (3) work, run the command as:

Code:

guests-Computer:/volumes guest$ pwd
/volumes
guests-Computer:/volumes guest$ find white -type d

Assuming that 'white' is a directory inside /volumes, the command will work.

One of the easy way to list just the directory is using ls -ltr|grep ^d
try that.

Easy yes, but incredibly slow, and in most cases not very useful output for use in a script.