How to find and run a bash script?

Question

I have a script named script.sh. I don't know where it is in the file system, but I do know it exists.

How do I find the script, make it executable, and run it all in one line through the command line?

I would like to run it with a single command. Find, make executable and execute.

Possible duplicate of How to run find -exec? – J. Chomel Feb 22 '17 at 08:52 — J. Chomel, Feb 22 '17 at 08:52

score 8 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

8

Use the find command for it in your home:
```
find ~ -name script.sh 
```
If you didn't find anything with the above, then use the find command for it on the whole F/S:
```
find / -name script.sh 2>/dev/null
```
(2>/dev/null will avoid unnecessary errors to be displayed) .
Launch it:
```
/<whatever_the_path_was>/script.sh
```

And all at once would give; more on how to find and exec:

find / -name "script.sh" -exec chmod +x {} \; -exec {} \; 2>/dev/null

(beware if you have more than one "script.sh", it will run them all)

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

Community

1

answered Feb 22 '17 at 08:06

J. Chomel

241

1

you can use -iname for case insensitive search. – sgargel Feb 22 '17 at 08:22
I would like to run it with a single command. Find, make executable and execute. – Pythoncoder Feb 22 '17 at 08:29
1

find . -name script.sh -type f -exec bash {} \; otherwise if you wanted to make if executable first then find . -name script.sh -type f -exec chmod +x {} \; -exec {} \; – Rakesh Sharma Feb 22 '17 at 08:49

Kusalananda · Answer 2 · 2017-02-22T08:53:53.740

There may be several scripts called exactly the same thing on your file system, so locating it based on the name and then blindly executing it is probably a very bad idea.

To locate it, use find as shown by J. Chomel in another answer to your question, or use locate:

$ locate script.sh

This will find all files called script.sh in locations that are readable by all users based on a database search on your system. Note that the database is updated on a regular basis (once daily or once weekly, depending on how it's configured), so files added since the last file system scan will not be found, but it's a lot faster than find.

You could use select to generate a menu from which you could select the correct script and execute it:

$ select script in $( locate script.sh ); do echo "$script"; break; done

Change echo to command to actually run the script you've selected rather than just printing its name.

How to find and run a bash script?

2 Answers2