Porting macOS aliases from find to fd

[shamindras]

I'm really enjoying using fd!

I'm in the process of porting over a couple of useful macOS clean up aliases from find to fd. These aliases are as follows:

alias clean="find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.DS_Store' -o -name '*~' -o -name '.*~' -o -name '*.swo' -o -name '*.swp' -o -name '.*.swo' | xargs rm"

alias wash="find . -name '*.DS_Store' -o -name '*~' -o -name '.*~' -o -name '*.swo' -o -name '*.swp' -o -name '.*.swo' | xargs rm"

When switching find to fd these aliases don't work. I tried several variations, but they don't even filter the multiple file type matches correctly. I also noticed that once ported to fd, we can replace the xargs with command execution, i.e., -x in fd. But wasn't sure how to port it over.

I would also like to ensure that the revised fd versions of these commands only filter for files, not directories.

Could anyone please assist with porting these commands?

[tavianator]

find -maxdepth 1 is equivalent to fd --max-depth 1. -name X -o -name Y can be written like fd 'X|Y', but they have to be regexes. So something like this:

$ fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$' -d1 -X rm

By the way your find commands have a bit of redundancy: -name '*~' will already match anything that -name '.*~' does, and same with *.swo and .*.swo. You could also use -exec instead of xargs but it is more awkward with find syntax:

$ find . -maxdepth 1 \( -name '*.DS_Store' -o -name ... \) -exec rm {} +

[shamindras]

Thanks @tavianator for your helpful guidance. I tried testing your command as follows:

mkdir -p test_fd
cd test_fd

# Create nested directories
mkdir -p sampdir{1..5}/subdir{1..3}

# Create test files for each level of the nested directory tree
touch {a.swo,b.swo,.DS_Store,c.swp,d.swp,aa~,bb~}
touch sampdir{1..5}/{a.swo,b.swo,.DS_Store,c.swp,d.swp,aa~,bb~}
touch sampdir{1..5}/subdir{1..3}/{a.swo,b.swo,.DS_Store,c.swp,d.swp,aa~,bb~}
tree --level=3

Which produces this directory test case

Toggle me!

.
├── sampdir1
│  ├── subdir1
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir2
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir3
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── .DS_Store
│  ├── a.swo
│  ├── aa~
│  ├── b.swo
│  ├── bb~
│  ├── c.swp
│  └── d.swp
├── sampdir2
│  ├── subdir1
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir2
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir3
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── .DS_Store
│  ├── a.swo
│  ├── aa~
│  ├── b.swo
│  ├── bb~
│  ├── c.swp
│  └── d.swp
├── sampdir3
│  ├── subdir1
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir2
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir3
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── .DS_Store
│  ├── a.swo
│  ├── aa~
│  ├── b.swo
│  ├── bb~
│  ├── c.swp
│  └── d.swp
├── sampdir4
│  ├── subdir1
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir2
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir3
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── .DS_Store
│  ├── a.swo
│  ├── aa~
│  ├── b.swo
│  ├── bb~
│  ├── c.swp
│  └── d.swp
├── sampdir5
│  ├── subdir1
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir2
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── subdir3
│  │  ├── .DS_Store
│  │  ├── a.swo
│  │  ├── aa~
│  │  ├── b.swo
│  │  ├── bb~
│  │  ├── c.swp
│  │  └── d.swp
│  ├── .DS_Store
│  ├── a.swo
│  ├── aa~
│  ├── b.swo
│  ├── bb~
│  ├── c.swp
│  └── d.swp
├── .DS_Store
├── a.swo
├── aa~
├── b.swo
├── bb~
├── c.swp
└── d.swp

Yet when I run fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$' -d1 or fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$', I don't seem to get any matches. Did I make a mistake here?

Also how does your regex ensure, for example, that we match *.swo (desired) and not just .swo (without the wildcard prefix, i.e., undesired)?

[tavianator]

Yet when I run fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$' -d1 or fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$', I don't seem to get any matches. Did I make a mistake here?

You probably want to add fd -u to include hidden files and .gitignored files. Also note that the -d1/--max-depth=1 is in effect, remove that for wash.

Also how does your regex ensure, for example, that we match *.swo (desired) and not just .swo (without the wildcard prefix, i.e., undesired)?

fd's regexes are not anchored, so fd X is just like fd '.*X'.

[shamindras]

Thanks @tavianator - your suggestions worked!

You probably want to add fd -u to include hidden files and .gitignored files. Also note that the -d1/--max-depth=1 is in effect, remove that for wash.

This is great! Since the test directory in my previous was not a git repo, I was wondering why the hidden files were being ignored. I realize that fd is looking up my global gitignore here. So I add the -u flag per your suggestion, which made it work.

fd's regexes are not anchored, so fd X is just like fd '.*X'.

Thanks - this makes sense now.

For ease of reference here are the final ported commands you have provided for the convenience of future readers. Note that I added the -tf flag, to ensure that the removal applies only to files (per my original requirement):

# clean up current directory
alias clean="fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$' -tf -d1 -u -X rm"

# clean up current directory AND all subdirectories
alias wash="fd '\.(DS_Store|swo|swp)$|~$' -tf -u -X rm"