[PLUG] Find files by metadata

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:19:37 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:

> I'm trying to locate (and then copy) all desktop application files on
> my computer. These are text files that contain launch information
> for applications. In a GUI file browser they are all referred to as
> "desktop configuration files" in the File Type column. That is, the
> GUI file browser knows that it should classify the file as being of
> that sort. But there is no unique extension or other obvious way that
> the file browser can tell what kind of file it is.
> 
> So how does the file browser know? Do these files emit an odor that
> only a file browser can smell? And can I use that aroma in a find or
> copy command?

John,

My understanding is that all of these files have names of the form
"<foobar>.desktop" or "<barfoo>.directory".  There may be some
named "<korflplatz>.kdelnk", but the .kdelnk suffix is deprecated.
So far as I know, they shouldn't be named any other way.

All of the .desktop files that I've looked at have "[Desktop
Entry]" as the first line.  The file command tells me that they
are UTF-8 Unicode English text.

The file

<http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/index.html>

is the standard for this type of file.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them
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