is there an 'upwards' find?

Question

To find files starting from a certain path, I can use find <path> .... If I want to find 'upwards', i.e. in the parent directory, and it's parent, and..., is there an equivalent tool?

Intended usage for a folder structure like this:

/
/abc
/abc/dce/efg/ghi


$ cd /abc/dce/efg/ghi
$ touch ../../x.txt
$ upfind . -name X*
../../x.txt
$ upfind . -name Y*
$

Answer 1

If you want the parent directory of the file you can use find and the -printf %h argument

find /abc -name X.txt -printf "%h\n"
/abc/dce

• %h

  Leading directories of file’s name (all but the last ele- ment). If the file name contains no slashes (since it is in the current directory) the %h specifier expands to ".".

Answer 2

x="$(pwd)"; while [ "$x" != "/" ]; do if [ -e "${x}/X.txt" ]; then echo $x; fi; x="$(dirname "$x")"; done

Answer 3

Why not just do a downward-recursive find from /? They will both search the entire filespace. Or are you asking for one that travels up but then does not travel down in the directories it finds in that search?

Answer 4

Based on the Idea of @Womble, I wrote a small script that does the trick:

#!/bin/bash
#
# rfind: finds a file in one of the parent directories

needle=$1 
current_dir=$(pwd) 
path=

while [ "$current_dir" != "$(dirname $current_dir)" ]; do 
    if [ -e "${current_dir}/$needle" ]; then 
        echo $path$needle
        exit 0
    else 
        path=../$path
        current_dir="$(dirname "$current_dir")"
    fi
done

if [ ! "$current_dir" != "$(dirname $current_dir)" ]; then
    echo "rfind: file $needle not found" >&2
    exit 1
fi

And named it 'rfind' in my own ~/bin directory. It does the trick:

/tmp $ mkdir -p x/y/z
/tmp $ cd x/y/z/
/tmp/x/y/z $ rfind a.txt || echo "not found."
rfind: file a.txt not found
not found.
/tmp/x/y/z $ touch ../../a.txt
/tmp/x/y/z $ rfind a.txt || echo "not found."
../../a.txt
/tmp/x/y/z $ 
/tmp/x/y/z $ cd ..
/tmp/x/y $ mkdir z2
/tmp/x/y $ cd z
/tmp/x/y/z $ touch ../z2/a.txt
/tmp/x/y/z $ rfind a.txt || echo "not found."
../../a.txt
/tmp/x/y/z $ rm ../../a.txt
/tmp/x/y/z $ rfind a.txt || echo "not found."
rfind: file a.txt not found
not found.