# The &kfind; Handbook

## Introduction

&kfind; is the &kde; file find utility.

### Launching &kfind;

You will find the entry Find Files. This will launch &kfind;, a handy application for finding files or even expressions within files.

## Finding Files

### The Name/Location Tab

When starting &kfind;, you will see a quite simple window. Type in the name of the file you are searching in the textbox labelled Named:, choose a directory where you want to search by typing it in the field Look in: or clicking Browse... and hit Enter or click Find. If Include subdirectories is checked, all subdirectories starting from your chosen directory will be searched, too. The results will be displayed in the Box below.

You can use the following wildcards:

The Asterisk *

- The asterisk stands for any number of missing characters (even zero), that means ⪚ searching for `marc*` may find the files `marc`, `marc.png` and `marc_must_not_read_this.kwd`. Otherwise, `mar*.kwd` may find `marketplace.kwd` and `marc_must_not_read_this.kwd`.

The Question Mark ?

- In contrast to the asterisk, the question mark stands for exacly one character, so `mar?` will find `marc`, but `marc?` won't find anything, as our files are called `marc` and `marc.png`. You can put as many question marks in the term as you want, it will find exactly that number of characters.

Of course you can combine those two wildcard symbols in a search term.

### The Date Range Tab

In this tab you can tell &kfind; the date period when the file(s) to be found have been created or edited last time.

Choosing All files will tell &kfind; not to worry about dates. If you check Find all files created or modified:, you can either enter two dates, between which the files were changed or created, or specify a period of previous months or days where the files should lay in.

### The Advanced Tab

Here you can refine your search or only look for files that contain a specific word or phrase.

These are the special refinements you can choose:

Of Type

- Here you can specify the type of file you are searching for.

Containing Text

- Type in the word or phrase the files you are searching for must contain. Note: If you do this in a large directory or checked Include Subfolders, this may take a long time.

Size is:

- Here you can specify if the file has to be at least or as most as big as the size (in KB) you entered in the following box.

Case Sensitive

- Usually, &kfind; doesn't matter of cases, so searching for `marc.png` will find `marc.png` and `Marc.png`. If you enable this option, it will only find files with the exact case matching, in our example only `marc.png`.

Use Regular Expression Matching

- If you have installed the &kregexpeditor; tool from the kdeutils package, you will have this additional option. Enabling it will allow you to search for a regexp or regular expression. A regexp is a way to specify conditions for your search, and they can be very complex, and equally they can be very powerful. If you are unfamiliar with regular expressions, you can choose Edit Regular Expression to open &kregexpeditor;. This tool allows you to construct your set of conditions graphically, and then generates the expression for you.

  &kregexpeditor; is a very useful tool, and can be used from within many &kde; applications other than &kfind;. You can find more information from within its own help file.

## Credits and Licence

&kfind;

Program copyright:

## Developers

- Martin Hartig

- Stephan Kulow coolo@kde.org

- Mario Weilguni mweilguni@sime.com

- Alex Zepeda jazepeda@pacbell.net

- Miroslav Fl?r flidr@kky.zcu.cz

- Harri Porten porten@kde.org

- Dima Rogozin dima@mercury.co.il

- Carsten Pfeiffer pfeiffer@kde.org

- Hans Petter Bieker bieker@kde.org

- Waldo Bastian bastian@kde.org

Documentation copyright 2001 Dirk Doerflinger ddoerflinger@web.de

KDE British Conversion John Knight anarchist_tomato@herzeleid.net

&underFDL; &underBSDLicense;

## Installation

### How to obtain &kfind;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &kfind;, you need &kde; 3.x.

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;
&documentation.index;