> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://ploegert.gitbook.io/til/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://ploegert.gitbook.io/til/os/unix/search-query/find-a-file-installed-by-brew.md).

# Find A File Installed By Brew

I installed a homebrew formula to satisfy a dependency for a Rails application. Related to [the whole mimemagic debacle](https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/41750), I had run [`brew install shared-mime-info`](https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/shared-mime-info). The specific file that Rails needed from this install was `freedesktop.org.xml`.

It took me two commands to figure out if that file had been included and where it was living.

The first was to find the *brew prefix directory* — the place where homebrew had installed everything related to `shared-mime-info`.

```bash
$ brew --prefix shared-mime-info
/usr/local/opt/shared-mime-info
```

Now that I know about that directory, I can use [`fd`](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd)—a more user-friendly alternative to `find`—to *find* the specific file in that directory. Not wanting to cast too narrow of a net, I decided to look for any `xml` file in that directory.

```bash
$ fd -e xml . /usr/local/opt/shared-mime-info
/usr/local/opt/shared-mime-info/share/shared-mime-info/packages/freedesktop.org.xml
```

The `-e` flag specifies the file extension. The `.` is the first argument, the pattern to look for. In this case, anything. The second argument (`/usr/local/opt/shared-mime-info`) is the path to look within. In this case, the brew prefix for the `shared-mime-info` package.