Bash Recursive Loop searching for file - bash

Question

Our assignment was just a conditional statement to say if a file exists or doesn't in the current directory. I already completed the primary objective but I am just trying to figure out how I could recurse using a loop and finding any other occurrences of the file name.
Currently, I am getting an infinite loop after finding the file in the first directory.
File exists and is located at /home/charlie/file.txt
File exists and is located at /home/charlie/file.txt
...
**Questions:
Would I need to have a nested for loop somewhere even though I am recursively calling the function?
Does using $pwd mess it up as I am trying to step into the directories?
Why is it printing twice as of now?**
#!/bin/bash
if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
echo 'Usage: findFile_new.sh [file name]'
exit 0
fi
exist="File exists and is located at "
function check() {
for file in $(pwd)/*
do
if [ -d "$file" ]; then
check $file $1
else
## Look for file
if [ -f "$1" ]; then
echo $exist$(pwd)/$1
fi
fi
done
}
check $1

Answer 1

Getting closer....
Why am i getting this as my output????
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//#/*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//compareQuiz.sh/testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4//*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//dir1/dir2/file.txt/*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//dir1/dir2/testFile.txt/*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//findFile_new.sh/*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//testFile.txt/*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//testscript.sh/*testFile.txt
File exists and is located at
/home/charlie//~/*testFile.txt
#!/bin/bash
if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
echo 'Usage: findFile_new.sh [file name]'
exit 0
fi
exist="File exists and is located at "
echo $1 $2
function check() {
for file in $1/*
do
if [ -d "$file" ]; then
check $file $2
else
## Look for file
if [ -f "$2" ]; then
echo $exist$file
fi
fi
done
}
check $1 $2

Answer 2

Yes, you are almost there. A possible problem is the variable $file
will contain pathname to the file such as path/to/the/testFile.txt while
the variable $2 may contain only testFile.txt.
Would you please try the following:
#!/bin/bash
# usage: check path targetname
check() {
local file
for file in "$1"/*; do
if [[ -d $file ]]; then
check "$file" "$2"
elif [[ -f $file && ${file##*/} = $2 ]]; then
echo "found: $file"
fi
done
}
if (( $# != 2 )); then
echo "usage: $0 path name"
exit 0
fi
check "$1" "$2"
The expression ${file##*/} removes the pathname preceding the rightmost slash
inclusive and now you can compare it with $2.

Answer 3

Your search is not truly recursive and will eventually fall into an infinite loop.
Rolling your own Bash script that would cover every case for recursive search within a directory - can be tricky (permission handling and links come to mind...)
What you could do - is to use find which takes care of all recursive woes, and then extract the data you may need. The script (or single command really) would be find . -iname $1
find . (in this directory) -iname match this name and ignore case and $1 first arg value.
From the above you could grep to extract any data you may need.
I know this does not answer your question 1:1, but if you're just starting with Bash, I'd say you're better off using tools provided within Bash first, then trying rolling your own.
As your task was already accomplished and it's more of a general question, I figured I'd provide you with "what I would do". :)
Another point - when using $pwd - this being a bash reserved environment variable, it's better to use $PWD. It makes it simple to understand which env_vars are user declared and which are system reserved.
edit:
If you'd like to see a nice example of how this can be done, please checkout https://www.shellscript.sh/eg/directories/#traverse2.sh