[OS X TeX] finding a file

[Herbert Schulz]

On Aug 15, 2012, at 11:01 AM, M A <markoilcan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 4:19 PM, Thomas Bohn <thbohn at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 10:09 PM, Nitecki, Zbigniew H.
>> <Zbigniew.Nitecki at tufts.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> A booklength project which I have been working on for years calls (via bibtex) a file called calculus.bib.
>> 
>> My suggestion, is to use Terminal.app and the command:
>> 
>> find / -name calculus.bib 2>/dev/null
>> 
> 
> It's far more efficient to do
> 
> mdfind -name caculus.bib
> 
> especially if you have a large hard drive.
> 
> Mark A

Howdy,

To find the calculus.bib file, assuming that it is found when you compile a file that uses it, I'd use the previously suggested

kpsewhich calculus.bib

command in Terminal since that is how (pdf/xe/lua)(la)tex finds the files requested by a document during compilation.

If you're not interested in finding file contents I'd stay away from Spotlight. My favorite file finder is `Find Any File' ($7.99 on the App Store and worth every penny) since it quickly find files anywhere on the Disk (e.g., Spotlight will not `find' files in /usr).

I would definitely not use `find ...` since that will take forever as it recursively searches all directories from scratch.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)