WHAT now with OSX search function?

Question

Okay, i just searched one of my hard drives for pdf files, and search returns 0 files.
HOW can this be!? I would use profanity here because it's plainly warranted, but Apple doesn't like that. I think from now on, i'll use the term "OS X" as a substitute for profanity.
So, I am looking at several pdf files in an OS X folder on this OSX drive, and i know there are more.
So what the OS X is going on? Thanks.

Answer 1

You should use spotlight to stop indexing an an hd.  Spotlight puts a file on the hd that says do not index.   I wrote this up awhile ago.
In an this post I will describe how to perform a classic Mac OS search. You may perform the search with or without the spotlight database. This search falls under the smart folder implementation introduced with Tiger.  I have done all my testing with Mac OS 10.4.11. I assume this will work with any version of Tiger or Leopard. 
The results will be slightly different with a spotlight database on the partition and without a database on the partition. With a database, you will not see Unix hidden files. You may be able to use all of the spotlight special find features. I did not test much with the spotlight special fields. Without a database, using the special features nulls out the search and the "Search for" field seems to give the same result as using the name field.
This search technique was obscured by all the hoopla over spotlight. Authors of Tiger books avoided mentioning the Classic search interface. When I looked in Leopard books I noticed some authors put back information on the Classic search interface.
How do you get to this interface?
Perform the Classic Mac OS search with a Spotlight database.
Click on the desktop to access the Finder.
click on File then click on find.
Pick what folder you wished to search.  Click on Others... to select a folder. Click on the plus sign to select the folder you wish to search.  Be sure the selected folder in the list is the only one checked.  In the first example I picked:  /Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/
The "Search for" field on the first line is used for spotlight. Avoid using this box.
Click on the plus symbol to the right of an input options. Click on the double arrow to the right of the first option. Go down to the name field.
You can now search for the contents of a filename. I searched for name contains: bash-
To see the Classic display format, click on the three line icon which is located on the upper left of the window.  There is a small refresh icon on the lower right of the window.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3485/3240587496_741476de7b.jpg?v=0!
I created the z-find folder on my Macintosh-HD then copy it over to my Spotless flash drive.  This means both searches searched for it the same file names.  See below for the list of file names.
This is the result of the search:
bash-backup-copy-invisible-attr.html
bash-backup-inside-bash-copy.html
bash-backup-inside-bash.html
bash-backup.html
bash-batChmod.html
bash-battery__yellow__4k.html     {labeled with the Yellow attribute}
bash-copy    {folder}
bash-copy-invisible-attr    {folder}
bash-folder__green    {folder and labeled with the Green attribute}
ping_command-bash-copy.html
You can create a smart folder to take you directly to the search panel.  Just click on the Save icon to the right of the window near the top. For readers of books, you should look under smart folders.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3498/3239759755_d5ebbefe05.jpg?v=0!
There are some downsides. Initially, the search will find both visible and invisible Mac OS files. However, the search seems to get confused between visible and invisible files when you select the visibility option. It seems to get the visible correct when you use visible but when you add invisible things get confused. Sometimes it will find invisible files and sometimes it won't. I used both the Unix invisible files and the Mac OS X visiblity attribute.
In putting the same search in the upper right-hand-corner spotlight search and in the Search for field, I did not get the same results. The spotlight search returned a 182 items while the with Search for field returned 179 items. The Search for field seemed to miss items in the mail boxes. With the Search for search you could display spotlight results in the classic format.
I do not know how this works internally. I successfully a search on my fat32 flash drive.
Perform the Classic Mac OS search without the spotlight database.
If you turn off spotlight indexing on a volume and delete the spotlight index, then Mac OS Tiger reverts to the prior Mac OS search facility. In the preferences for spotlight, you let searching continued on the partition.
Here is what I did:
I installed the spotless application.
http://www.fixamac.net/software/spot/
I use spotless to configure spotlight. Click on disabled indexing then click on  delete index files.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/3239751839_c760c46628.jpg?v=0!
Spotless creates the .Spotlight-V100 directory with the _IndexPolicy.plist and _rules.plist to prevent indexing on the partition.
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/Spotless
mac $ ls -ld .Spotlight-V100
drwx------   4 mac  staff  136 Jan 22 23:51 .Spotlight-V100
mac $ ls -l .Spotlight-V100
total 16
-rw-------   1 mac  staff  55 Jan 22 23:51 _IndexPolicy.plist
-rw-------   1 mac  staff  58 Jan 22 23:51 _rules.plist
_IndexPolicy.plist:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Policy</key>
    <integer>3</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
_rules.plist:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Spot_Auto</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
I put these files on my Macintosh-HD and Spotless partitions.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3363/3219766624_63687ff9a7.jpg?v=0!
Here is the list of files:
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/Spotless/iMac/z-find
mac $ ls -RaF
.DS_Store
.bash-backup-copy-initial-dot-copy.html
.bash-copy-initial-dot/
bash-backup-copy-invisible-attr.html
bash-backup.html
bash-batChmod.html
bash-battery__yellow__4k.html
bash-copy/
bash-copy-invisible-attr/
bash-folder__green/
./.bash-copy-initial-dot:
.DS_Store
bash-backup-inside-bash.html
ping_command_as_Give.html
./bash-copy:
.DS_Store
bash-backup-inside-bash-copy.html
ping_command-bash-copy.html
./bash-copy-invisible-attr:
.DS_Store
ping_command_as_Give.html
./bash-folder__green:
.DS_Store
ping_command_as_Give.html
mac $
I performed the search for files containing "bash-" in the name field.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3430/3240587902_171d8d46c3.jpg?v=0!
This is the result of the search:
bash-backup-inside-bash-copy.html
bash-backup.html
bash-batChmod.html
bash-battery__yellow__4k.html     {labeled with the Yellow attribute}
bash-copy    {folder}
bash-folder__green    {folder and labeled with the Green attribute}
ping_command-bash-copy.html
Limitations:
Does not search in Unix hidden folders. That is folders beginning with a period (.) .
Sometimes will find files beginning with a period (.).
Does not find Mac OS invisible files.
Using the special features nulls out the search.
The Search for  field seems to give the same result as using the name field.
Related tips:
• by Baltwo
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050501162147222
If you haven't run Leopard, note that finding stuff is different than Tiger's.
See http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/Leopard/leospot.html and my mod to Finder's Find at http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6725932 for what you can change so you can find stuff excluded by the default structure.
• "Searching for files by name"
http://cocoacafe.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/fscatalogsearch/
Alternatives:
• FindAnyFile
"Contrary to Spotlight, it does not use a database but instead uses the file system driver's fast search operations."
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/index.html
• Use the Terminal find command to list files from multiple directories.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
mac $ find ~/Desktop/iMac/z-find  -iname "*bash-*"  -exec ls -dF  {} \;
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-backup-copy-initial-dot-copy.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-copy-initial-dot/
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-copy-initial-dot/bash-backup-inside-bash.ht ml
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-backup-copy-invisible-attr.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-backup.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-batChmod.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-battery__yellow__4k.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy/
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy/bash-backup-inside-bash-copy.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy/ping_command-bash-copy.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy-invisible-attr/
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-folder__green/
mac $
• findfile
"Here’s a simple command-line tool which uses FSCatalogSearch to search for files by name.
usage: findfile -r   "
Here is where to find: findfile.
http://cocoacafe.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/fscatalogsearch/
I am searching file names containing  "bash-" in  the directory "/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find".
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
mac $ ~/findfile -r /Volumes/Macintosh-HD/ "bash-" |\
additional input:    grep '^/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/'
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-backup-copy-initial-dot-copy.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-copy-initial-dot
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-backup-copy-invisible-attr.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-backup.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-batChmod.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-battery__yellow__4k.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy-invisible-attr
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-folder__green
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-copy-initial-dot/bash-backup-inside-bash.ht ml
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy/bash-backup-inside-bash-copy.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy/ping_command-bash-copy.html
• You can use the Terminal to search the contents of a file.
You need to combine the find command with the grep command. I am searching for the word pdisk where file names containing  "bash-" in  the directory "/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find".  The symbols {} \; are needed after the word to search. See:
man find
man grep
for cryptic details.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
mac $ find ~/Desktop/iMac/z-find -iname "*bash-*" -type f -exec grep -bil 'pdisk' {} \;
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-backup-copy-initial-dot-copy.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/.bash-copy-initial-dot/bash-backup-inside-bash.ht ml
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-backup-copy-invisible-attr.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-backup.html
/Users/mac/Desktop/iMac/z-find/bash-copy/bash-backup-inside-bash-copy.html
Robert