file_find

A fast file searching tool written in Rust. This tool works like grep but is useful for locating particular strings in files across a directory tree.

Date: 26 Nov 2025

Oliver Bonham-Carter

Email: obonhamcarter at allegheny.edu

A fast, colourized command-line tool written in Rust for recursively searching files in a directory tree by filename (using regular expressions) and optionally searching within those files for lines matching a second regular expression. Results are colour-highlighted for easy reading.

File-find, was designed for working primarily with web development projects, but can be used for any type of project.

Features

• Recursively searches directories for files matching a filename regex
• Optionally searches inside matching files for lines matching a content regex
• colourized output for file paths and matching lines
• Displays search duration
• Helpful usage and extended help messages

Setup

1. Clone the repository (if you haven't already):

   git clone <repo-url>
   cd file_find

2. Build the project (requires Rust and Cargo):

   cargo build --release

   The compiled binary will be in target/release/file_find.

Usage

Basic Usage

Online Help:

cargo run -- --bighelp

Search for a specific filename

Find all files named example.txt:

cargo run -- example.txt

Use a filename regex

Find all .md files:

cargo run -- ".*\.md$"

Search for files and highlight lines containing a string/regex

Find all .rs files containing the word main:

cargo run -- ".*\.rs$" --search main

Search all files for a term:

Find all .rs files containing the word main:

cargo run -- ".*\.rs$" --search "term"

or simply:

cargo run -- "\.rs"  --search "term"

Combine filename and content search

Find all files with data in the name, containing the word track:

cargo run -- data --search track

Search all files for a particular text

To search every file in the directory tree for a specific text or pattern, use a filename regex that matches all files (e.g., .*), combined with the --search option:

cargo run -- ".*" --search your_text_here

For example, to find all files containing the word TODO:

cargo run -- ".*" --search TODO

This will print the path of every file containing the text, and highlight each matching line.

Extended Help

Show usage and regex tips:

cargo run -- --bighelp

Simple Example

In the following command, we search for all Rust source files (.rs) in the current directory and its subdirectories that contain the word expect:

cargo run -- ".rs" --search expect

The output will look like this:

  ./src/main.rs
    Line 116:     let filename_regex = Regex::new(&args[1]).expect("Invalid filename regex");
    Line 120:             .map(|s| Regex::new(s).expect("Invalid search regex"))
  ./src/toml_extract.rs
    Line 26:     let content = fs::read_to_string(file_path).expect("Failed to read Cargo.toml file");
    Line 29:     let cargo_toml: CargoToml = from_str(&content).expect("Failed to parse Cargo.toml");
  Search completed in 36.25ms

Cool, right?!

Notes

• The filename pattern is a regular expression (Rust regex syntax).
• The --search option is also a regular expression for matching lines inside files.
• Output is colourized for clarity.
• If a file cannot be read, a warning is shown.

---

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you have ideas for improvements or want to add more features, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

A Work In Progress

Check back often to see the evolution of the project! This project is a work-in-progress. Updates will come periodically.

If you would like to contribute to this project, please do! For instance, if you see some low-hanging fruit or tasks that could add value to the project, I would love to have your insight.

Otherwise, please create an issue for bugs or errors. Since I am a teaching faculty member at Allegheny College, I may not have all the time necessary to quickly fix bugs. I welcome the Open Source Community to further the development of this project. Much thanks in advance.

If you appreciate this project, please consider clicking the project's Star button. :-)