fselect

Find files with SQL-like queries

Basic usage

fselect [ARGS] COLUMN[, COLUMN...] [from ROOT[, ROOT...]] [where EXPR] [group by COLUMNS] [order by COLUMNS] [limit N] [into FORMAT]

You write SQL-like query, that’s it.

fselect command itself is like a first keyword (select, i.e., file select). But if you’ll put one more select behind occasionally, that’s not a problem.

Next you put columns you are interested in. It could be file name or path, size, modification date, etc. See full list of possible columns. You can add columns with arbitrary text (put in quotes if it contains spaces). A few functions (aggregating and formatting) are there for your service. You can use arithmetic expressions when it makes sense.

Where to search? Specify with from keyword. You can list one or more directories separated with comma. If you leave the from, then current directory will be processed.

What to search? Use where with any number of conditions.

Order results like in real SQL with order by. All columns are supported for ordering by, as well as asc/desc parameters and positional numeric shortcuts.

Limiting search results is possible with limit. Formatting options are supported with into keyword.

If you want to use operators containing > or <, put the whole query into the double quotes. This will protect query from the shell and output redirection. The same applies to queries with parentheses or *, ? and other special shell metacharacters.

It’s ok to use any metacharacters in interactive mode.

It’s not a real SQL

Directories to search at are listed with comma separators. In a real SQL such syntax would make a cross product. Here it means just search at A, next at B, and so on.

You can use curly braces instead of the regular parentheses! This helps to avoid a few of shell pitfalls a little bit. Functions with no arguments don’t require parentheses at all.

String literals don’t really need quotes. You will need to put them just in case you query something with spaces inside. And yes, you should use quotes for glob-patterns or regular expressions in the query on Linux or Mac OS to prevent parameter expansion from the shell. If you are on Windows, feel free to omit most of the quotes.

Commas for column separation aren’t needed as well. Column aliasing (with or without as keyword) is not supported.

where section can contain short syntax conditions for boolean columns (like is_audio or other_write).

into keyword specifies output format, not output table.

Joins, unions, and subselects are not supported (yet?).

Columns and fields

Column	Meaning	Comment
`name`	Returns the name (with extension) of the file
`extension` or `ext`	Returns the extension of the file
`path`	Returns the path of the file
`abspath`	Returns the absolute path of the file
`directory` or `dirname` or `dir`	Returns the directory of the file
`absdir`	Returns the absolute directory of the file
`size`	Returns the size of the file in bytes
`fsize` or `hsize`	Returns the size of the file accompanied with the unit
`uid`	Returns the UID of the owner
`gid`	Returns the GID of the owner’s group
`accessed`	Returns the time the file was last accessed (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
`created`	Returns the file creation date (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
`modified`	Returns the time the file was last modified (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
`is_dir`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a directory
`is_file`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a file
`is_symlink`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a symlink
`is_pipe` or `is_fifo`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a FIFO or pipe file
`is_char` or `is_character`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a character device or character special file
`is_block`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a block or block special file
`is_socket`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a socket file
`is_hidden`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a hidden file (e.g., files that start with a dot on *nix)
`has_xattrs`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file has extended attributes
`capabilities` or `caps`	Returns a string describing Linux capabilities assigned to a file	Available only on Linux
`device`	Returns the code of device the file is stored on	Available only on Linux
`inode`	Returns the number of inode	Available only on Linux
`blocks`	Returns the number of blocks (256 bytes) the file occupies	Available only on Linux
`hardlinks`	Returns the number of hardlinks of the file	Available only on Linux
`mode`	Returns the permissions of the owner, group, and everybody (similar to the first field in `ls -la`)
`user`	Returns the name of the owner for this file	Available only on *nix platforms with `users` feature enabled
`user_read`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be read by the owner
`user_write`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be written by the owner
`user_exec`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be executed by the owner
`user_all`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be fully accessed by the owner
`group`	Returns the name of the owner’s group for this file	Available only on *nix platforms with `users` feature enabled
`group_read`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be read by the owner’s group
`group_write`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be written by the owner’s group
`group_exec`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be executed by the owner’s group
`group_all`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be fully accessed by the group
`other_read`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be read by others
`other_write`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be written by others
`other_exec`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be executed by others
`other_all`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be fully accessed by the others
`suid`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file permissions have a SUID bit set
`sgid`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file permissions have a SGID bit set
`width`	Returns the number of pixels along the width of the photo or MP4 file
`height`	Returns the number of pixels along the height of the photo or MP4 file
`mime`	Returns MIME type of the file
`is_binary`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file has binary contents
`is_text`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file has text contents
`line_count`	Returns a number of lines in a text file
`exif_datetime`	Returns date and time of taken photo
`exif_altitude` or `exif_alt`	Returns GPS altitude of taken photo
`exif_latitude` or `exif_lat`	Returns GPS latitude of taken photo
`exif_longitude` or `exif_lng` or `exif_lon`	Returns GPS longitude of taken photo
`exif_make`	Returns name of the camera manufacturer
`exif_model`	Returns camera model
`exif_software`	Returns software name with which the photo was taken
`exif_version`	Returns the version of EXIF metadata
`mp3_title` or `title`	Returns the title of the audio file taken from the file’s metadata
`mp3_album` or `album`	Returns the album name of the audio file taken from the file’s metadata
`mp3_artist` or `artist`	Returns the artist of the audio file taken from the file’s metadata
`mp3_genre` or `genre`	Returns the genre of the audio file taken from the file’s metadata
`mp3_year`	Returns the year of the audio file taken from the file’s metadata
`mp3_freq` or `freq`	Returns the sampling rate of audio or video file
`mp3_bitrate` or `bitrate`	Returns the bitrate of the audio file in kbps
`duration`	Returns the duration of audio file in seconds
`is_shebang`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file starts with a shebang (#!)
`is_empty`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is empty or the directory is empty
`is_archive`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is an archival file	default extensions
`is_audio`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is an audio file	default extensions
`is_book`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a book	default extensions
`is_doc`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a document	default extensions
`is_font`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a font	default extensions
`is_image`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is an image	default extensions
`is_source`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is source code	default extensions
`is_video`	Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a video file	default extensions
`sha1`	Returns SHA-1 digest of a file
`sha2_256` or `sha256`	Returns SHA2-256 digest of a file
`sha2_512` or `sha512`	Returns SHA2-512 digest of a file
`sha3_512` or `sha3`	Returns SHA-3 digest of a file

Functions

Aggregate functions

Queries using these functions return only one result row.

Function	Meaning	Example
AVG	Average of all values	`select avg(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
COUNT	Number of all values	`select count(*) from /home/user/Downloads`
MAX	Maximum value	`select max(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
MIN	Minimum value	`select min(size) from /home/user where size gt 0`
SUM	Sum of all values	`select sum(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
STDDEV_POP, STDDEV or STD	Population standard deviation, the square root of variance	`select stddev_pop(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
STDDEV_SAMP	Sample standard deviation, the square root of sample variance	`select stddev_samp(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
VAR_POP or VARIANCE	Population variance	`select var_pop(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
VAR_SAMP	Sample variance	`select var_samp(size) from /home/user/Downloads`

Date functions

Used mostly for formatting results.

Function	Meaning	Example
CURRENT_DATE or CUR_DATE or CURDATE	Returns current date	`select modified, path where modified = CURDATE()`
DAY	Extract day of the month	`select day(modified) from /home/user/Downloads`
MONTH	Extract month of the year	`select month(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
YEAR	Extract year of the date	`select year(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
DOW or DAYOFWEEK	Returns day of the week (1 - Sunday, 2 - Monday, etc.)	`select name, modified, dow(modified) from /home/user/projects/FizzBuzz`

User functions

These are only available on Unix platforms when users feature has been enabled during compilation.

Function	Meaning	Example
CURRENT_UID	Current real UID	`select CURRENT_UID()`
CURRENT_USER	Current real UID’s name	`select CURRENT_USER()`
CURRENT_GID	Current primary GID	`select CURRENT_GID()`
CURRENT_GROUP	Current primary GID’s name	`select CURRENT_GROUP()`

Xattr functions

Used to check if particular xattr exists, or to get its value. Supported platforms are Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, and NetBSD.

Function	Meaning	Example
HAS_XATTR	Check if xattr exists	`select "name, has_xattr(user.test) from /home/user"`
XATTR	Get value of xattr	`select "name, xattr(user.test) from /home/user"`
HAS_CAPABILITIES or HAS_CAPS	Check if any Linux capability exists for the file	`select "name, has_caps() from /home/user"`
HAS_CAPABILITY or HAS_CAP	Check if given Linux capability exists for the file	`select "name, has_cap('cap_bpf') from /home/user"`

String functions

Used mostly for formatting results.

Function	Meaning	Example
LENGTH or LEN	Length of string value	`select length(name) from /home/user/Downloads order by 1 desc limit 10`
LOWER or LOWERCASE or LCASE	Convert value to lowercase	`select lower(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
UPPER or UPPERCASE or UCASE	Convert value to uppercase	`select upper(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
INITCAP	Returns first letter of each word uppercase, all other letters lowercase	`select initcap('MICHAEL SMITH')`
TO_BASE64 or BASE64	Encode value to Base64	`select base64(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
FROM_BASE64	Decode value from Base64	`select from_base64('ZnNlbGVjdCByb2Nrcw==')`
SUBSTRING or SUBSTR (str, pos, len)	Part of `str` value starting from `pos` of (optionally) `len` characters long. Negative `pos` means starting `pos` characters from the end of the string.	`select substr(name, 1, 8) from /home/user/Downloads`
REPLACE (str, from, to)	Replace all occurrences of `from` by `to`	`select replace(name, metallica, MetaLLicA) from /home/user/Music/Rock`
TRIM	Returns string with whitespaces at the beginning and the end stripped	`select trim(title), trim(artist), trim(album) from /home/user/Music into json`
LTRIM	Returns string with whitespaces at the beginning stripped	`select ltrim(title) from /home/user/Music into json`
RTRIM	Returns string with whitespaces at the end stripped	`select rtrim(title) from /home/user/Music into json`

Japanese string functions

Used for detecting Japanese symbols in file names and such.

Function	Meaning	Example
CONTAINS_JAPANESE or JAPANESE	Check if string value contains Japanese symbols	`select japanese(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
CONTAINS_KANA or KANA	Check if string value contains kana symbols	`select kana(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
CONTAINS_HIRAGANA or HIRAGANA	Check if string value contains hiragana symbols	`select contains_hiragana(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
CONTAINS_KATAKANA or KATAKANA	Check if string value contains katakana symbols	`select katakana(name) from /home/user/Downloads`
CONTAINS_KANJI or KANJI	Check if string value contains kanji symbols	`select kanji(name) from /home/user/Downloads`

Other functions

Function	Meaning	Example
BIN	Convert integer value to binary representation	`select name, size, bin(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
HEX	Convert integer value to hexadecimal representation	`select name, size, hex(size), upper(hex(size)) from /home/user/Downloads`
OCT	Convert integer value to octal representation	`select name, size, oct(size) from /home/user/Downloads`
POWER or POW	Raise the value to the specified power	`select pow(2, 3)`
SQRT	Returns square root of the value	`select sqrt(25)`
CONTAINS	`true` if file contains string, `false` if not	`select contains(TODO) from /home/user/Projects/foo/src`
COALESCE	Returns first nonempty expression value	`select name, size, COALESCE(sha256, '---') from /home/user/Downloads`
CONCAT	Returns concatenated string of expression values	`select CONCAT('Name is ', name, ' size is ', fsize, '!!!') from /home/user/Downloads`
CONCAT_WS	Returns concatenated string of expression values with specified delimiter	`select name, fsize, CONCAT_WS('x', width, height) from /home/user/Images`
RANDOM or RAND	Returns random integer (from zero to max int, from zero to arg, or from arg1 to arg2)	`select path from /home/user/Music order by RAND()`
FORMAT_TIME or PRETTY_TIME	Returns human-readable durations of time in seconds like 2min 26s	`select format_time(duration) from /home/user/Music`
FORMAT_SIZE	Returns formatted size of a file	`select name, FORMAT_SIZE(size, '%.0') from /home/user/Downloads order by size desc limit 10`

Let’s try FORMAT_SIZE with different format specifiers:

Specifier	Meaning	Output
`format_size(1678123)`	Default output	1.60MiB
`format_size(1678123, ' ')`	Put a space before units	1.60 MiB
`format_size(1678123, '%.0')`	Round up decimal part	2MiB
`format_size(1678123, '%.1')`	One place for decimal part	1.6MiB
`format_size(1678123, '%.2')`	Two places for decimal part	1.60MiB
`format_size(1678123, '%.2 ')`	Two places for decimal part, and put a space before units	1.60 MiB
`format_size(1678123, '%.2 d')`	Use decimal divider, e.g. 1000-based units, not 1024-based	1.68 MB
`format_size(1678123, '%.2 c')`	Use conventional format, e.g. 1024-based divider, but display 1000-based units	1.60 MB
`format_size(1678123, '%.2 k')`	Display file size in specified unit, this time in kibibytes	1638.79 KiB
`format_size(1678123, '%.2 ck')`	What is a kibibyte? Gimme conventional unit!	1638.79 KB
`format_size(1678123, '%.0 ck')`	And drop this decimal part!	1639 KB
`format_size(1678123, '%.0 kb')`	Use 1000-based kilobyte	1678 KB
`format_size(1678123, '%.0kb')`	Don’t put a space	1678KB
`format_size(1678123, '%.0s')`	Use short units	2M
`format_size(1678123, '%.0 s')`	Use short units with a space	2 M

File size units

Specifier	Meaning	Bytes
`t` or `tib`	tebibyte	1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024
`tb`	terabyte	1000 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000
`g` or `gib`	gibibyte	1024 * 1024 * 1024
`gb`	gigabyte	1000 * 1000 * 1000
`m` or `mib`	mebibyte	1024 * 1024
`mb`	megabyte	1000 * 1000
`k` or `kib`	kibibyte	1024
`kb`	kilobyte	1000

fselect size, path from /home/user/tmp where size gt 2g
fselect fsize, path from /home/user/tmp where size = 5mib
fselect hsize, path from /home/user/tmp where size lt 8kb

Search roots

path [option N] [option] [option] [option...][, path2 [option...]]

When you put a directory to search at, you can specify some options.

Option	Meaning
mindepth N	Minimum search depth. Default is unlimited. Depth 1 means skip one directory level and search further.
maxdepth N	Maximum search depth. Default is unlimited. Depth 1 means search the mentioned directory only. Depth 2 means search mentioned directory and its subdirectories. Synonym is `depth`.
symlinks	If specified, search process will follow symlinks. Default is not to follow. Synonym is `sym`.
archives	Search within archives. Only zip archives are supported. Default is not to include archived content into the search results. Synonym is `arc`.
gitignore	Search respects `.gitignore` files found. Synonym is `git`.
hgignore	Search respects `.hgignore` files found. Synonym is `hg`.
dockerignore	Search respects `.dockerignore` files found. Synonym is `dock`.
nogitignore	Disable `.gitignore` parsing during the search. Synonym is `nogit`.
nohgignore	Disable `.hgignore` parsing during the search. Synonym is `nohg`.
nodockerignore	Disable `.dockerignore` parsing during the search. Synonym is `nodock`.
dfs	Depth-first search mode.
bfs	Breadth-first search mode. This is the default.
regexp	Use regular expressions to search within multiple roots. Synonym is `rx`.

Operators

= or == or eq
!= or <> or ne
=== or eeq
!== or ene
> or gt
>= or gte or ge
< or lt
<= or lte or le
=~ or ~= or regexp or rx
!=~ or !~= or notrx
like
notlike
between

Arithmetic operators

Operator	Alias
+	plus
-	minus
*	mul
/	div
%	mod

Date and time specifiers

When you specify inexact date and time with = or != operator, fselect understands it as an interval.

fselect path from /home/user where modified = 2017-05-01

2017-05-01 means all day long from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59.

fselect path from /home/user where modified = '2017-05-01 15'

2017-05-01 15 means one hour from 15:00:00 to 15:59:59.

fselect path from /home/user where modified ne '2017-05-01 15:10'

2017-05-01 15:10 is a 1-minute interval from 15:10:00 to 15:10:59.

Other operators assume exact date and time, which could be specified in a more free way:

fselect "path from /home/user where modified === 'apr 1'"
fselect "path from /home/user where modified gte 'last fri'"
fselect path from /home/user where modified gte '01/05'

More about it

fselect uses UK locale, not American style dates, i.e. 08/02 means February 8th.

Regular expressions

Rust flavor regular expressions are used.

MIME and file types

For MIME guessing use field mime. It returns a simple string with deduced MIME type, which is not always accurate.

fselect path, mime, is_binary, is_text from /home/user

is_binary and is_text return true or false based on MIME type detected. Once again, this should not be considered as 100% accurate result, or even possible at all to detect correct file type.

Other fields listed below do NOT use MIME detection. Assumptions are being made based on file extension.

The lists below could be edited with the configuration file.

Search field	Extensions
`is_archive`	.7z, .bz2, .bzip2, .gz, .gzip, .lz, .rar, .tar, .xz, .zip
`is_audio`	.aac, .aiff, .amr, .flac, .gsm, .m4a, .m4b, .m4p, .mp3, .ogg, .wav, .wma
`is_book`	.azw3, .chm, .djv, .djvu, .epub, .fb2, .mobi, .pdf
`is_doc`	.accdb, .doc, .docm, .docx, .dot, .dotm, .dotx, .mdb, .odp, .ods, .odt, .pdf, .potm, .potx, .ppt, .pptm, .pptx, .rtf, .xlm, .xls, .xlsm, .xlsx, .xlt, .xltm, .xltx, .xps
`is_font`	.eot, .fon, .otc, .otf, .ttc, .ttf, .woff, .woff2
`is_image`	.bmp, .exr, .gif, .heic, .jpeg, .jpg, .jxl, .png, .svg, .tga, .tiff, .webp
`is_source`	.asm, .bas, .c, .cc, .ceylon, .clj, .coffee, .cpp, .cs, .d, .dart, .elm, .erl, .go, .groovy, .h, .hh, .hpp, .java, .jl, .js, .jsp, .jsx, .kt, .kts, .lua, .nim, .pas, .php, .pl, .pm, .py, .rb, .rs, .scala, .sol, .swift, .tcl, .ts, .vala, .vb, .zig
`is_video`	.3gp, .avi, .flv, .m4p, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mp4, .mpeg, .mpg, .webm, .wmv

fselect is_archive, path from /home/user
fselect is_audio, is_video, path from /home/user/multimedia
fselect path from /home/user where is_doc != 1
fselect path from /home/user where is_image = false
fselect path from /home/user where is_video != true

MP3 support

fselect can parse basic MP3 metadata and search by bitrate or sampling frequency of the first frame, title of the track, artist’s name, album, genre, and year.

Duration is measured in seconds.

List of supported genres

fselect duration, bitrate, path from /home/user/music
fselect mp3_year, album, title from /home/user/music where artist like %Vampire% and bitrate gte 320
fselect bitrate, freq, path from /home/user/music where genre = Rap or genre = HipHop

File hashes

Column	Meaning
`sha1`	SHA-1 digest of a file
`sha2_256` or `sha256`	SHA2-256 digest of a file
`sha2_512` or `sha512`	SHA2-512 digest of a file
`sha3_512` or `sha3`	SHA3-512 digest of a file

fselect path, sha256, 256 from /home/user/archive limit 5
fselect path from /home/user/Download where sha1 like cb23ef45% 

Output formats

... into FORMAT

Format	Description
`tabs`	default, columns are separated with tabulation
`lines`	each column goes at a separate line
`list`	columns are separated with NULL symbol, similar to `-print0` argument of `find`
`csv`	comma-separated columns
`json`	array of resulting objects with requested columns
`html`	HTML document with table

fselect size, path from /home/user limit 5 into json
fselect size, path from /home/user limit 5 into csv
fselect size, path from /home/user limit 5 into html
fselect path from /home/user into list | xargs -0 grep foobar

Configuration file

fselect tries to create a new configuration file if one doesn’t exist.

Usual location on Linux:

/home/user_name/.config/fselect/config.toml

On Windows:

C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\jhspetersson\fselect\config.toml

Fresh config is filled with defaults, feel free to update it.

If no config on the standard paths found, fselect checks its presence next to the executable. You can also specify config location with runtime option, e.g.:

fselect --config /home/user_name/fselect_custom.toml name, size from /home/user_name/Music where is_audio = 1

Check for updates

fselect can be built with update-notifications feature, that enables automatic check for updates. This check is disabled by default. To enable it, put

check_for_updates = true

into the config file.

Command-line arguments

Argument	Meaning
`--config` or `-c` or `/config`	Specify config file location
`--nocolor` or `--no-color` or `/nocolor`	Disable colors
`--help` or `-h` or `/?` or `/h`	Show help and exit

Environment variables

fselect respects NO_COLOR environment variable.

Exit values

Value	Meaning
0	everything OK
1	I/O error has occurred during any directory listing or file reading
2	error during parsing of the search query

This site is open source. Improve this page.