[X-Unix]from tcsh to bash

[Dan Frakes]

~flipper <lord.flipper at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>even the Spotlight can't 'find' your /usr/bin directory.
>>
>>You can easily tell Spotlight to include /usr/bin in searches if you prefer
>>such a configuration. But more importantly, why would the average user (not
>>a power user, but an average user) *want* the contents of /user/bin -- or
>>any other folder containing Unix executables or OS files -- to be included
>>in Spotlight searches? There are over 700 files in /usr/bin alone, few of
>>which most Mac users will ever care about and most of which contain a good
>>number of basic words that would likely get picked up by Spotlight searches.
>>For example, if Spotlight were to include /usr/bin by default, a user who
>>searches for "copyright" would end up with literally hundreds of unwanted
>>matches, making the results list pretty unmanageable.
>
> All right, you're on, so let's assume nobody wants to learn anything,
> and let's say I used /usr/bin as an example, but I'd really like to
> track down all my java .jar stuff, and try to cobble together a new
> xml parser without having redundant bs all over the underbelly of the
> Mac, ok?
>
> So, what's the trivial method of adding the subsytem to Spotlight?

There are a couple ways. If you want to include a folder such as /usr/bin in
a "Finder window" search (i.e., what has replaced the Find dialog in Tiger),
you just use the "Others" button and add the desired directory (e.g.,
/usr/bin) to the list of places to search.

If what you really want to do is add /usr/bin to the menu bar Spotlight
search:

mdimport -f /usr/bin

That forces Spotlight to index the given directory.


Or, for more options, see this page at MacOSXHints:

<http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2005050222125145>


> Just kidding I can find anything on here in nanoseconds with Xfile,
> so big deal, but why the 'conspiracy' to keep the real system out of
> sight?

I don't think there's any "conspiracy" -- I think Apple is just making the
default Spotlight search useful for the average user. Most users don't care
about the "real system," its support files, or the contents of those files.
I do, and you do, but on the whole, how many Mac users do? For example, my
mother-in-law has no use for shell scripts and Unix executables, so a
Spotlight search that showed her every match for "path" anywhere on a
Unix-based system, when all she really wanted was to find the email my
cousin sent her about a great running path in the local park, would be a
disaster ;-)