fd for find

If you are looking for a replacement for find, fd [2] (or fdfind, as Debian calls it) covers the most common uses of find (Figure 8). Especially if you use regular expressions, fd can produce results four or five times faster than find. However, fd offers other equally useful features, including a simpler syntax, color input, and defaults that include case-insensitivity and the ignoring of hidden files. Should you need case-sensitivity, all you need to do is use uppercase letters in the search pattern.

Figure 8: A faster version of find, fd displays color-coded results.

plocate for locate

Over the years, locate has had several different versions, including mlocate. All use a database to increase the speed of file searches. The most recent version, plocate (Figure 9), is a drop-in replacement that is starting to be the norm in many major distributions. The main advantage of plocate is that it can be three or four times faster than any of its predecessors on large searches, thanks mainly to the fact that it usually does not search through its entire database unless the search item is extremely small. Unlike its predecessors, plocate can also search for multiple strings at the same time, which can speed up the file search.

Figure 9: Here, plocate limits the results to the first 10 found.

ripgrep for grep

Together with its variants, grep offers a comprehensive search function for text patterns. However, sometimes, its speed seems measured in eons. The main reason to use ripgrep is that it is much faster than grep for large searches (Figure 10). Much of this speed is obtained by ignoring hidden and binary files by default and by the use of a .gitignore file to list other exceptions. Even more important, while grep is confined to plain text files, ripgrep supports a number of different file types and Unicode encodings, which can either make a search more comprehensive or else restrict it. Other useful features include an enhanced regex engine. While ripgrep is not the only grep replacement, it outperforms alternatives such as ag, git grep, ucg, pt, and sif in most cases.

Figure 10: Designed primarily for speed, ripgrep modifies grep.