js-level-2-projects/04-replicate-find

Replicate find

This exercise is very similar to the ls exercise, but instead of simply listing based on a pattern you are taking various commands to more finely control the search. This will help you solidify your understanding of the fs module which will be essential for future exercises.

Notes on Commander.js

The find command is an odd one because it uses the non-standard -name style (one dash, one word) while the rest of Unix tools use --name style (two dash, one word) or -n (one dash, one letter) style. For now, if you want to keep using commander.js then you'll have to use the --name style and just go with it for now.

find For Windows

Windows doesn't have find so you'll have to research how it works either inside Windows Subsystem for Linux or from the man page.

Another option is to replicate the PowerShell Get-ChildItem or gci for short. If you're not interested in running WSL for this exercise then I recommend this path, but my tutorial will replicate find.

Learning Objectives

This exercise is all about cementing your understanding of everything learned so far:

1. Patterns using Regular Expressions (RegExp).
2. Recursively processing and finding files.
3. Using fs.stat to read the attributes of a file.
4. Getting command line options from the user.

Once you're done with this exercise you should be well versed in files, directories, file attributes, and how to find them for processing.