[X4U] Using Apple's Find (Command F)

[John Baltutis]

On 09/03/06, Daly Jessup <jessup at san.rr.com> wrote, in a couple of posts:
> At 1:35 PM -0700 3/9/06, John Baltutis wrote:
>>Quick tutorial. All of Spotlight's arcane stuff is stored in the hidden,
>>root-level directory /.Spotlight V100. To view its contents, use the
>>Terminal.app command ls, preceeding it with sudo:
>>
>>sudo ls -al /.Spotlight-V100/   ---->
>>.journalHistoryLog
>>.store.db
>>ContentIndex.db
>>Store-V1 (which contains a ton of indexes)
>>_IndexPolicy.plist
>>_rules.plist
>>store.db
>>
>>Use the cp command to back it up (so you can replace it if you screw it up),
>>copy it to your desktop, open it in TextEdit, add the new parts, save it, and
>>cp it back, replacing the original.
>
> Thank you so much. Coincidentally, I have been studying a basic Unix
> tutorial this afternoon so that was less confusing than it might have
> been  an hour ago!
>
> But I notice in the listing of /.Spotlight-V100/ that its size is
> zero. and when I try to view it (I used "cat" - was that wrong?) it
> says "No such file or directory".

Very confusing. What has size zero? The /.Spotlight-V100 directory? Shouldn't
be. On my machine,
 ls -al / --->
drw-------   11 root    baltwo      374 Sep  4 00:50 .Spotlight-V100

which just shows the directory size of 374 and not the size of its contents.

> Or maybe I am misinterpreting the "---->" in your instructions.

The ---> just indicates the results from the ls -al command. Here's the full
output:

sudo ls -al /.Spotlight-V100/
drw-------   11 root  unknown       374 Sep  4 00:50 .
drwxrwxr-t   36 root  admin        1258 Sep  3 22:03 ..
-rw-------    1 root  unknown         0 Sep  4 11:46 .journalHistoryLog
-rw-------    1 root  unknown  47861760 Sep  4 21:34 .store.db
-rw-------    1 root  unknown  99614720 Sep  4 20:57 ContentIndex.db
drwx------    2 root  unknown        68 Aug 22 16:28 Store-V1
-rw-------    1 root  unknown       238 Sep  4 00:50 _IndexPolicy.plist
-rw-------    1 root  unknown       230 Sep  4 00:40 _exclusions.plist
-rw-------    1 root  unknown       619 Feb  3  2006 _rules.plist
-rw-------    1 root  unknown       378 Jan 21  2006 _rules.plist.bak
-rw-------    1 root  unknown  47861760 Sep  4 21:20 store.db

Note that I have journaling turned off-doin't think it's viable for single-user
machines, only servers-thus its size is 0.

> I appear not to have journaled my hard drive. Would that make this
> process not work? My guess is that the answer is "yes". So can you
> only change this .plist if your disk is set up to be journaled?

Which process are you talking about? The one about modifying the _rules.plist?

> Still, I see the listing as you show above. When I type:
> sudo cp _rules.plist rules2.plist
> in an effor to back it up (then move it to the Desktop later) it
> tells me "No such file or directory".
> My tutorial hasn't taken me yet to knowing what the underline before
> its name means.

Terminal 101 when dealing with system-level objects. You have to give the
entire path; thus,

sudo cp /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist /.Spotlight-V100/_ rules2.plist --backs
up the original
sudo cp /.Spotlight-V100/_rules.plist ~/Desktop/ --copies _rules.plist to the
Desktop

You don't need to include the file's name, since it doesn't exist. Make the
changes, then

sudo ~/Desktop/_rules.plist /.Spotlight-V100/ --and it overwrites the original.

Restart and it should be in operation.

Despite your correction, I answered everything you originally posted.