fad is a command-line tool which (F)inds recently (A)ctive (D)irectories. The theory
being that your interest in recently active directories is more than just a passing
fad... ahem.
fad recursively searches each path to find directories with the most recent activity
date. The activity date is derived from the date-time-modified of the most recently
modified entry within each directory.
fad differs from "find -mtime" and "find -newer" in that it analyses activity within
each directory to confer an activity date on the parent as opposed to only comparing
the directory's date-time-modified against a fixed age or file.
The output lists directories in activity date order starting with the most recently
active first. By way of example, if fad scans the following directory structure on
02 Jun at around 13:30:
| Path | Date Time | Modified |
|---|---|---|
| Projects/nextgen/README.md | 01 Jun | 01:00 |
| Projects/nextgen/main.go | 28 May | 09:02 |
| Projects/parago/main.go | 10 May | 15:19 |
| Projects/parago/capture.go | 25 May | 23:21 |
| Projects/sparsify/main.cc | 13 Apr | 14:45 |
| Projects/sparsify/threads.cc | 02 Jun | 12:18 |
it produces the following output:
1h:f:Projects/sparsify/threads.cc
5D:f:Projects/nextgen/main.go
1W:f:Projects/parago/capture.go
which shows that the sparsify project is the most recently active due to threads.cc
being modified 1 hour ago and nextgen is the next most recently active due to main.go
being modified 5 days ago. To reduce clutter and remain directory focussed, fad only ever
lists a directory once regardless of its contents. The manpage describes the output
format.
Typical questions fad is designed to answer are:
| Question | Invocation |
|---|---|
| Which project have I been working on recently? | fad ~/Projects |
What syslog directories have been written to recently? |
fad /var/log |
| Have any configuration directories just changed? | fad -age 5m /etc /usr/local/etc /opt/etc |
| My boss wants to know what I worked on last week - help! | fad -age 1W $HOME |
fad is known to run on FreeBSD, macOS, Linux and Windows and requires go 1.22 or later.
fad can be installed with "go install" if you only wish to install the executable in
your home directory or you can use the more traditional "make install" method if you want
to install the executable and manpage in /usr/local.
go install github.com/markdingo/fad@latestfor the latest official release, or if you're after the leading edge:
go install github.com/markdingo/fad@mainThe "go install" invocation performs all the downloading, building and installing with the
executable ending up in one of $GOPATH/bin, $HOME/go/bin or $GOBIN depending on your
setup.
The main reason to prefer the traditional "make install" method is so that the executable
and the manpage are installed and that you can control that installation location. With
this method you need to clone the repo and run make.
To install in /usr/local, run:
git clone https://github.com/markdingo/fad.git
cd fad
make all
sudo make installand to install in an alternate ROOT location, such as your $HOME, run:
git clone https://github.com/markdingo/fad.git
cd fad
make all
make install ROOT=$HOMEA good first test of fad is to ask it to find your recently active installation
directories with:
fad $HOME /usr/localAll being well fad should display the directory containing itself at or near the top of
the list.
If you have any problems using fad or suggestions on how it can do a better job,
don't hesitate to create an issue on
the project home page. This package can only improve with your feedback.
fad is Copyright ©️ 2025 Mark Delany. This software is licensed under the
BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License.