1FIND(1) General Commands Manual FIND(1)
2
6 find - search for files in a directory hierarchy
7
9 find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...]
10 [expression]
11
13 This manual page documents the GNU version of find. GNU find searches
14 the directory tree rooted at each given starting-point by evaluating
15 the given expression from left to right, according to the rules of
16 precedence (see section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known (the
17 left hand side is false for and operations, true for or), at which
18 point find moves on to the next file name. If no starting-point is
19 specified, `.' is assumed.
20 If you are using find in an environment where security is important
22 (for example if you are using it to search directories that are
23 writable by other users), you should read the "Security Considerations"
24 chapter of the findutils documentation, which is called Finding Files
25 and comes with findutils. That document also includes a lot more
26 detail and discussion than this manual page, so you may find it a more
27 useful source of information.
28
30 The -H, -L and -P options control the treatment of symbolic links.
31 Command-line arguments following these are taken to be names of files
32 or directories to be examined, up to the first argument that begins
33 with `-', or the argument `(' or `!'. That argument and any following
34 arguments are taken to be the expression describing what is to be
35 searched for. If no paths are given, the current directory is used.
36 If no expression is given, the expression -print is used (but you
37 should probably consider using -print0 instead, anyway).
38 This manual page talks about `options' within the expression list.
40 These options control the behaviour of find but are specified immedi‐
41 ately after the last path name. The five `real' options -H, -L, -P, -D
42 and -O must appear before the first path name, if at all. A double
43 dash -- can also be used to signal that any remaining arguments are not
44 options (though ensuring that all start points begin with either `./'
45 or `/' is generally safer if you use wildcards in the list of start
46 points).
47 -P Never follow symbolic links. This is the default behaviour.
49 When find examines or prints information a file, and the file is
50 a symbolic link, the information used shall be taken from the
51 properties of the symbolic link itself.
52 -L Follow symbolic links. When find examines or prints information
55 about files, the information used shall be taken from the prop‐
56 erties of the file to which the link points, not from the link
57 itself (unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is unable to
58 examine the file to which the link points). Use of this option
59 implies -noleaf. If you later use the -P option, -noleaf will
60 still be in effect. If -L is in effect and find discovers a
61 symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search, the subdirec‐
62 tory pointed to by the symbolic link will be searched.
63 When the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always
65 match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points
66 to rather than the link itself (unless the symbolic link is bro‐
67 ken). Actions that can cause symbolic links to become broken
68 while find is executing (for example -delete) can give rise to
69 confusing behaviour. Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname
70 predicates always to return false.
71 -H Do not follow symbolic links, except while processing the com‐
74 mand line arguments. When find examines or prints information
75 about files, the information used shall be taken from the prop‐
76 erties of the symbolic link itself. The only exception to this
77 behaviour is when a file specified on the command line is a sym‐
78 bolic link, and the link can be resolved. For that situation,
79 the information used is taken from whatever the link points to
80 (that is, the link is followed). The information about the link
81 itself is used as a fallback if the file pointed to by the sym‐
82 bolic link cannot be examined. If -H is in effect and one of
83 the paths specified on the command line is a symbolic link to a
84 directory, the contents of that directory will be examined
85 (though of course -maxdepth 0 would prevent this).
86 If more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each overrides the oth‐
88 ers; the last one appearing on the command line takes effect. Since it
89 is the default, the -P option should be considered to be in effect
90 unless either -H or -L is specified.
91 GNU find frequently stats files during the processing of the command
93 line itself, before any searching has begun. These options also affect
94 how those arguments are processed. Specifically, there are a number of
95 tests that compare files listed on the command line against a file we
96 are currently considering. In each case, the file specified on the
97 command line will have been examined and some of its properties will
98 have been saved. If the named file is in fact a symbolic link, and the
99 -P option is in effect (or if neither -H nor -L were specified), the
100 information used for the comparison will be taken from the properties
101 of the symbolic link. Otherwise, it will be taken from the properties
102 of the file the link points to. If find cannot follow the link (for
103 example because it has insufficient privileges or the link points to a
104 nonexistent file) the properties of the link itself will be used.
105 When the -H or -L options are in effect, any symbolic links listed as
107 the argument of -newer will be dereferenced, and the timestamp will be
108 taken from the file to which the symbolic link points. The same con‐
109 sideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer.
110 The -follow option has a similar effect to -L, though it takes effect
112 at the point where it appears (that is, if -L is not used but -follow
113 is, any symbolic links appearing after -follow on the command line will
114 be dereferenced, and those before it will not).
115 -D debugoptions
118 Print diagnostic information; this can be helpful to diagnose
119 problems with why find is not doing what you want. The list of
120 debug options should be comma separated. Compatibility of the
121 debug options is not guaranteed between releases of findutils.
122 For a complete list of valid debug options, see the output of
123 find -D help. Valid debug options include
124 help Explain the debugging options
126 tree Show the expression tree in its original and optimised
128 form.
129 stat Print messages as files are examined with the stat and
131 lstat system calls. The find program tries to minimise
132 such calls.
133 opt Prints diagnostic information relating to the optimisa‐
135 tion of the expression tree; see the -O option.
136 rates Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate suc‐
138 ceeded or failed.
139 -Olevel
141 Enables query optimisation. The find program reorders tests to
142 speed up execution while preserving the overall effect; that is,
143 predicates with side effects are not reordered relative to each
144 other. The optimisations performed at each optimisation level
145 are as follows.
146 0 Equivalent to optimisation level 1.
148 1 This is the default optimisation level and corresponds to
150 the traditional behaviour. Expressions are reordered so
151 that tests based only on the names of files (for example
152 -name and -regex) are performed first.
153 2 Any -type or -xtype tests are performed after any tests
155 based only on the names of files, but before any tests
156 that require information from the inode. On many modern
157 versions of Unix, file types are returned by readdir()
158 and so these predicates are faster to evaluate than pred‐
159 icates which need to stat the file first. If you use the
160 -fstype FOO predicate and specify a filesystem type FOO
161 which is not known (that is, present in `/etc/mtab') at
162 the time find starts, that predicate is equivalent to
163 -false.
164 3 At this optimisation level, the full cost-based query
166 optimiser is enabled. The order of tests is modified so
167 that cheap (i.e. fast) tests are performed first and more
168 expensive ones are performed later, if necessary. Within
169 each cost band, predicates are evaluated earlier or later
170 according to whether they are likely to succeed or not.
171 For -o, predicates which are likely to succeed are evalu‐
172 ated earlier, and for -a, predicates which are likely to
173 fail are evaluated earlier.
174 The cost-based optimiser has a fixed idea of how likely any
176 given test is to succeed. In some cases the probability takes
177 account of the specific nature of the test (for example, -type f
178 is assumed to be more likely to succeed than -type c). The
179 cost-based optimiser is currently being evaluated. If it does
180 not actually improve the performance of find, it will be removed
181 again. Conversely, optimisations that prove to be reliable,
182 robust and effective may be enabled at lower optimisation levels
183 over time. However, the default behaviour (i.e. optimisation
184 level 1) will not be changed in the 4.3.x release series. The
185 findutils test suite runs all the tests on find at each optimi‐
186 sation level and ensures that the result is the same.
187
189 The part of the command line after the list of starting points is the
190 expression. This is a kind of query specification describing how we
191 match files and what we do with the files that were matched. An
192 expression is composed of a sequence of things:
193 Tests Tests return a true or false value, usually on the basis of some
196 property of a file we are considering. The -empty test for
197 example is true only when the current file is empty.
198 Actions
201 Actions have side effects (such as printing something on the
202 standard output) and return either true or false, usually based
203 on whether or not they are successful. The -print action for
204 example prints the name of the current file on the standard out‐
205 put.
206 Global options
209 Global options affect the operation of tests and actions speci‐
210 fied on any part of the command line. Global options always
211 return true. The -depth option for example makes find traverse
212 the file system in a depth-first order.
213 Positional options
216 Positional optiona affect only tests or actions which follow
217 them. Positional options always return true. The -regextype
218 option for example is positional, specifying the regular expres‐
219 sion dialect for regulat expressions occurring later on the com‐
220 mand line.
221 Operators
224 Operators join together the other items within the expression.
225 They include for example -o (meaning logical OR) and -a (meaning
226 logical AND). Where an operator is missing, -a is assumed.
227 If the whole expression contains no actions other than -prune or
230 -print, -print is performed on all files for which the whole expression
231 is true.
232 The -delete action also acts like an option (since it implies -depth).
234 POSITIONAL OPTIONS
237 Positional options always return true. They affect only tests occur‐
238 ring later on the command line.
239 -daystart
242 Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and
243 -mtime) from the beginning of today rather than from 24 hours
244 ago. This option only affects tests which appear later on the
245 command line.
246 -follow
249 Deprecated; use the -L option instead. Dereference symbolic
250 links. Implies -noleaf. The -follow option affects only those
251 tests which appear after it on the command line. Unless the -H
252 or -L option has been specified, the position of the -follow
253 option changes the behaviour of the -newer predicate; any files
254 listed as the argument of -newer will be dereferenced if they
255 are symbolic links. The same consideration applies to -newerXY,
256 -anewer and -cnewer. Similarly, the -type predicate will always
257 match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points
258 to rather than the link itself. Using -follow causes the -lname
259 and -ilname predicates always to return false.
260 -regextype type
263 Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and
264 -iregex tests which occur later on the command line. To see
265 which regular expression types are known, use -regextype help.
266 The Texinfo documentation (see SEE ALSO) explains the meaning of
267 and differences between the various types of regular expression.
268 -warn, -nowarn
271 Turn warning messages on or off. These warnings apply only to
272 the command line usage, not to any conditions that find might
273 encounter when it searches directories. The default behaviour
274 corresponds to -warn if standard input is a tty, and to -nowarn
275 otherwise. If a warning message relating to command-line usage
276 is produced, the exit status of find is not affected. If the
277 POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set, and -warn is also
278 used, it is not specified which, if any, warnings will be
279 active.
280 GLOBAL OPTIONS
283 Global options always return true. Global options take effect even for
284 tests which occurr earlier on the command line. To prevent confusion,
285 global options should specified on the command-line after the list of
286 start points, just before the first test, positional option or action.
287 If you specify a global option in some other place, find will issue a
288 warning message explaining that this can be confusing.
289 The global options occur after the list of start points, and so are not
291 the same kind of option as -L, for example.
292 -d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD,
295 MacOS X and OpenBSD.
296 -depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself.
299 The -delete action also implies -depth.
300 -help, --help
303 Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.
304 -ignore_readdir_race
307 Normally, find will emit an error message when it fails to stat
308 a file. If you give this option and a file is deleted between
309 the time find reads the name of the file from the directory and
310 the time it tries to stat the file, no error message will be
311 issued. This also applies to files or directories whose names
312 are given on the command line. This option takes effect at the
313 time the command line is read, which means that you cannot
314 search one part of the filesystem with this option on and part
315 of it with this option off (if you need to do that, you will
316 need to issue two find commands instead, one with the option and
317 one without it).
318 -maxdepth levels
321 Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of direc‐
322 tories below the starting-points. -maxdepth 0
323 means only apply the tests and actions to the starting-points
324 themselves.
325 -mindepth levels
328 Do not apply any tests or actions at levels less than levels (a
329 non-negative integer). -mindepth 1 means process all files
330 except the starting-points.
331 -mount Don't descend directories on other filesystems. An alternate
334 name for -xdev, for compatibility with some other versions of
335 find.
336 -noignore_readdir_race
339 Turns off the effect of -ignore_readdir_race.
340 -noleaf
343 Do not optimize by assuming that directories contain 2 fewer
344 subdirectories than their hard link count. This option is
345 needed when searching filesystems that do not follow the Unix
346 directory-link convention, such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS filesystems
347 or AFS volume mount points. Each directory on a normal Unix
348 filesystem has at least 2 hard links: its name and its `.'
349 entry. Additionally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a
350 `..' entry linked to that directory. When find is examining a
351 directory, after it has statted 2 fewer subdirectories than the
352 directory's link count, it knows that the rest of the entries in
353 the directory are non-directories (`leaf' files in the directory
354 tree). If only the files' names need to be examined, there is
355 no need to stat them; this gives a significant increase in
356 search speed.
357 -version, --version
360 Print the find version number and exit.
361 -xautofs
364 Don't descend directories on autofs filesystems.
365 -xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems.
368 TESTS
371 Some tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison
372 between the file currently being examined and some reference file spec‐
373 ified on the command line. When these tests are used, the interpreta‐
374 tion of the reference file is determined by the options -H, -L and -P
375 and any previous -follow, but the reference file is only examined once,
376 at the time the command line is parsed. If the reference file cannot
377 be examined (for example, the stat(2) system call fails for it), an
378 error message is issued, and find exits with a nonzero status.
379 Numeric arguments can be specified as
381 +n for greater than n,
383 -n for less than n,
385 n for exactly n.
387 -amin n
389 File was last accessed n minutes ago.
390 -anewer file
393 File was last accessed more recently than file was modified. If
394 file is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L option is in
395 effect, the access time of the file it points to is always used.
396 -atime n
399 File was last accessed n*24 hours ago. When find figures out
400 how many 24-hour periods ago the file was last accessed, any
401 fractional part is ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to
402 have been accessed at least two days ago.
403 -cmin n
406 File's status was last changed n minutes ago.
407 -cnewer file
410 File's status was last changed more recently than file was modi‐
411 fied. If file is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L
412 option is in effect, the status-change time of the file it
413 points to is always used.
414 -ctime n
417 File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago. See the comments
418 for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation
419 of file status change times.
420 -empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.
423 -executable
426 Matches files which are executable and directories which are
427 searchable (in a file name resolution sense). This takes into
428 account access control lists and other permissions artefacts
429 which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the
430 access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which
431 do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement
432 access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot make use of the
433 UID mapping information held on the server. Because this test
434 is based only on the result of the access(2) system call, there
435 is no guarantee that a file for which this test succeeds can
436 actually be executed.
437 -false Always false.
440 -fstype type
443 File is on a filesystem of type type. The valid filesystem
444 types vary among different versions of Unix; an incomplete list
445 of filesystem types that are accepted on some version of Unix or
446 another is: ufs, 4.2, 4.3, nfs, tmp, mfs, S51K, S52K. You can
447 use -printf with the %F directive to see the types of your
448 filesystems.
449 -gid n File's numeric group ID is n.
452 -group gname
455 File belongs to group gname (numeric group ID allowed).
456 -ilname pattern
459 Like -lname, but the match is case insensitive. If the -L
460 option or the -follow option is in effect, this test returns
461 false unless the symbolic link is broken.
462 -iname pattern
466 Like -name, but the match is case insensitive. For example, the
467 patterns `fo*' and `F??' match the file names `Foo', `FOO',
468 `foo', `fOo', etc. The pattern `*foo*` will also match a file
469 called '.foobar'.
470 -inum n
473 File has inode number n. It is normally easier to use the
474 -samefile test instead.
475 -ipath pattern
478 Like -path. but the match is case insensitive.
479 -iregex pattern
482 Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.
483 -iwholename pattern
486 See -ipath. This alternative is less portable than -ipath.
487 -links n
490 File has n links.
491 -lname pattern
494 File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pat‐
495 tern. The metacharacters do not treat `/' or `.' specially. If
496 the -L option or the -follow option is in effect, this test
497 returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.
498 -mmin n
501 File's data was last modified n minutes ago.
502 -mtime n
505 File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago. See the comments
506 for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation
507 of file modification times.
508 -name pattern
511 Base of file name (the path with the leading directories
512 removed) matches shell pattern pattern. Because the leading
513 directories are removed, the file names considered for a match
514 with -name will never include a slash, so `-name a/b' will never
515 match anything (you probably need to use -path instead). A
516 warning is issued if you try to do this, unless the environment
517 variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. The metacharacters (`*', `?',
518 and `[]') match a `.' at the start of the base name (this is a
519 change in findutils-4.2.2; see section STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
520 below). To ignore a directory and the files under it, use
521 -prune; see an example in the description of -path. Braces are
522 not recognised as being special, despite the fact that some
523 shells including Bash imbue braces with a special meaning in
524 shell patterns. The filename matching is performed with the use
525 of the fnmatch(3) library function. Don't forget to enclose
526 the pattern in quotes in order to protect it from expansion by
527 the shell.
528 -newer file
531 File was modified more recently than file. If file is a sym‐
532 bolic link and the -H option or the -L option is in effect, the
533 modification time of the file it points to is always used.
534 -newerXY reference
537 Succeeds if timestamp X of the file being considered is newer
538 than timestamp Y of the file reference. The letters X and Y
539 can be any of the following letters:
540 a The access time of the file reference
543 B The birth time of the file reference
544 c The inode status change time of reference
545 m The modification time of the file reference
546 t reference is interpreted directly as a time
547 Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for X
549 to be t. Some combinations are not implemented on all systems;
550 for example B is not supported on all systems. If an invalid or
551 unsupported combination of XY is specified, a fatal error
552 results. Time specifications are interpreted as for the argu‐
553 ment to the -d option of GNU date. If you try to use the birth
554 time of a reference file, and the birth time cannot be deter‐
555 mined, a fatal error message results. If you specify a test
556 which refers to the birth time of files being examined, this
557 test will fail for any files where the birth time is unknown.
558 -nogroup
561 No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.
562 -nouser
565 No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.
566 -path pattern
569 File name matches shell pattern pattern. The metacharacters do
570 not treat `/' or `.' specially; so, for example,
571 find . -path "./sr*sc"
572 will print an entry for a directory called `./src/misc' (if one
573 exists). To ignore a whole directory tree, use -prune rather
574 than checking every file in the tree. For example, to skip the
575 directory `src/emacs' and all files and directories under it,
576 and print the names of the other files found, do something like
577 this:
578 find . -path ./src/emacs -prune -o -print
579 Note that the pattern match test applies to the whole file name,
580 starting from one of the start points named on the command line.
581 It would only make sense to use an absolute path name here if
582 the relevant start point is also an absolute path. This means
583 that this command will never match anything:
584 find bar -path /foo/bar/myfile -print
585 Find compares the -path argument with the concatenation of a
586 directory name and the base name of the file it's examining.
587 Since the concatenation will never end with a slash, -path argu‐
588 ments ending in a slash will match nothing (except perhaps a
589 start point specified on the command line). The predicate -path
590 is also supported by HP-UX find and will be in a forthcoming
591 version of the POSIX standard.
592 -perm mode
595 File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic).
596 Since an exact match is required, if you want to use this form
597 for symbolic modes, you may have to specify a rather complex
598 mode string. For example `-perm g=w' will only match files
599 which have mode 0020 (that is, ones for which group write per‐
600 mission is the only permission set). It is more likely that you
601 will want to use the `/' or `-' forms, for example `-perm -g=w',
602 which matches any file with group write permission. See the
603 EXAMPLES section for some illustrative examples.
604 -perm -mode
607 All of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic
608 modes are accepted in this form, and this is usually the way in
609 which you would want to use them. You must specify `u', `g' or
610 `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for
611 some illustrative examples.
612 -perm /mode
615 Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic
616 modes are accepted in this form. You must specify `u', `g' or
617 `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for
618 some illustrative examples. If no permission bits in mode are
619 set, this test matches any file (the idea here is to be consis‐
620 tent with the behaviour of -perm -000).
621 -perm +mode
624 This is no longer supported (and has been deprecated since
625 2005). Use -perm /mode instead.
626 -readable
629 Matches files which are readable. This takes into account
630 access control lists and other permissions artefacts which the
631 -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the access(2) system
632 call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping
633 (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in
634 the client's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping
635 information held on the server.
636 -regex pattern
639 File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match
640 on the whole path, not a search. For example, to match a file
641 named `./fubar3', you can use the regular expression `.*bar.' or
642 `.*b.*3', but not `f.*r3'. The regular expressions understood
643 by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but this can
644 be changed with the -regextype option.
645 -samefile name
648 File refers to the same inode as name. When -L is in effect,
649 this can include symbolic links.
650 -size n[cwbkMG]
653 File uses n units of space, rounding up. The following suffixes
654 can be used:
655 `b' for 512-byte blocks (this is the default if no suffix is
657 used)
658 `c' for bytes
660 `w' for two-byte words
662 `k' for Kilobytes (units of 1024 bytes)
664 `M' for Megabytes (units of 1048576 bytes)
666 `G' for Gigabytes (units of 1073741824 bytes)
668 The size does not count indirect blocks, but it does count
670 blocks in sparse files that are not actually allocated. Bear in
671 mind that the `%k' and `%b' format specifiers of -printf handle
672 sparse files differently. The `b' suffix always denotes
673 512-byte blocks and never 1 Kilobyte blocks, which is different
674 to the behaviour of -ls. The + and - prefixes signify greater
675 than and less than, as usual, but bear in mind that the size is
676 rounded up to the next unit (so a 1-byte file is not matched by
677 -size -1M).
678 -true Always true.
680 -type c
683 File is of type c:
684 b block (buffered) special
686 c character (unbuffered) special
688 d directory
690 p named pipe (FIFO)
692 f regular file
694 l symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the
696 -follow option is in effect, unless the symbolic link is
697 broken. If you want to search for symbolic links when -L
698 is in effect, use -xtype.
699 s socket
701 D door (Solaris)
703 -uid n File's numeric user ID is n.
705 -used n
708 File was last accessed n days after its status was last changed.
709 -user uname
712 File is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).
713 -wholename pattern
716 See -path. This alternative is less portable than -path.
717 -writable
720 Matches files which are writable. This takes into account
721 access control lists and other permissions artefacts which the
722 -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the access(2) system
723 call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping
724 (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in
725 the client's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping
726 information held on the server.
727 -xtype c
730 The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link. For sym‐
731 bolic links: if the -H or -P option was specified, true if the
732 file is a link to a file of type c; if the -L option has been
733 given, true if c is `l'. In other words, for symbolic links,
734 -xtype checks the type of the file that -type does not check.
735 -context pattern
737 (SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pat‐
738 tern.
739 ACTIONS
742 -delete
743 Delete files; true if removal succeeded. If the removal failed,
744 an error message is issued. If -delete fails, find's exit sta‐
745 tus will be nonzero (when it eventually exits). Use of -delete
746 automatically turns on the `-depth' option.
747 Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated
749 as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to
750 delete everything below the starting points you specified. When
751 testing a find command line that you later intend to use with
752 -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid
753 later surprises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot
754 usefully use -prune and -delete together.
755 -exec command ;
758 Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following
759 arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until
760 an argument consisting of `;' is encountered. The string `{}'
761 is replaced by the current file name being processed everywhere
762 it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments
763 where it is alone, as in some versions of find. Both of these
764 constructions might need to be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to
765 protect them from expansion by the shell. See the EXAMPLES sec‐
766 tion for examples of the use of the -exec option. The specified
767 command is run once for each matched file. The command is exe‐
768 cuted in the starting directory. There are unavoidable secu‐
769 rity problems surrounding use of the -exec action; you should
770 use the -execdir option instead.
771 -exec command {} +
774 This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on
775 the selected files, but the command line is built by appending
776 each selected file name at the end; the total number of invoca‐
777 tions of the command will be much less than the number of
778 matched files. The command line is built in much the same way
779 that xargs builds its command lines. Only one instance of `{}'
780 is allowed within the command. The command is executed in the
781 starting directory. If any invocation returns a non-zero value
782 as exit status, then find returns a non-zero exit status. If
783 find encounters an error, this can sometimes cause an immediate
784 exit, so some pending commands may not be run at all. This
785 variant of -exec always returns true.
786 -execdir command ;
789 -execdir command {} +
791 Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the subdirec‐
792 tory containing the matched file, which is not normally the
793 directory in which you started find. This a much more secure
794 method for invoking commands, as it avoids race conditions dur‐
795 ing resolution of the paths to the matched files. As with the
796 -exec action, the `+' form of -execdir will build a command line
797 to process more than one matched file, but any given invocation
798 of command will only list files that exist in the same subdirec‐
799 tory. If you use this option, you must ensure that your $PATH
800 environment variable does not reference `.'; otherwise, an
801 attacker can run any commands they like by leaving an appropri‐
802 ately-named file in a directory in which you will run -execdir.
803 The same applies to having entries in $PATH which are empty or
804 which are not absolute directory names. If any invocation
805 returns a non-zero value as exit status, then find returns a
806 non-zero exit status. If find encounters an error, this can
807 sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may
808 not be run at all. The result of the action depends on whether
809 the + or the ; variant is being used; -execdir command {} +
810 always returns true, while -execdir command {} ; returns true
811 only if command returns 0.
812 -fls file
816 True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint. The output file
817 is always created, even if the predicate is never matched. See
818 the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual
819 characters in filenames are handled.
820 -fprint file
823 True; print the full file name into file file. If file does not
824 exist when find is run, it is created; if it does exist, it is
825 truncated. The file names `/dev/stdout' and `/dev/stderr' are
826 handled specially; they refer to the standard output and stan‐
827 dard error output, respectively. The output file is always cre‐
828 ated, even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL
829 FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters
830 in filenames are handled.
831 -fprint0 file
834 True; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint. The output
835 file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched.
836 See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how
837 unusual characters in filenames are handled.
838 -fprintf file format
841 True; like -printf but write to file like -fprint. The output
842 file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched.
843 See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how
844 unusual characters in filenames are handled.
845 -ls True; list current file in ls -dils format on standard output.
848 The block counts are of 1K blocks, unless the environment vari‐
849 able POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, in which case 512-byte blocks are
850 used. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about
851 how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
852 -ok command ;
855 Like -exec but ask the user first. If the user agrees, run the
856 command. Otherwise just return false. If the command is run,
857 its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
858 The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular
861 expressions to determine if it is an affirmative or negative
862 response. This regular expression is obtained from the system
863 if the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, or other‐
864 wise from find's message translations. If the system has no
865 suitable definition, find's own definition will be used. In
866 either case, the interpretation of the regular expression itself
867 will be affected by the environment variables 'LC_CTYPE' (char‐
868 acter classes) and 'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equiva‐
869 lence classes).
870 -okdir command ;
875 Like -execdir but ask the user first in the same way as for -ok.
876 If the user does not agree, just return false. If the command
877 is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
878 -print True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed
881 by a newline. If you are piping the output of find into
882 another program and there is the faintest possibility that the
883 files which you are searching for might contain a newline, then
884 you should seriously consider using the -print0 option instead
885 of -print. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information
886 about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
887 -print0
890 True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed
891 by a null character (instead of the newline character that
892 -print uses). This allows file names that contain newlines or
893 other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by pro‐
894 grams that process the find output. This option corresponds to
895 the -0 option of xargs.
896 -printf format
899 True; print format on the standard output, interpreting `\'
900 escapes and `%' directives. Field widths and precisions can be
901 specified as with the `printf' C function. Please note that
902 many of the fields are printed as %s rather than %d, and this
903 may mean that flags don't work as you might expect. This also
904 means that the `-' flag does work (it forces fields to be left-
905 aligned). Unlike -print, -printf does not add a newline at the
906 end of the string. The escapes and directives are:
907 \a Alarm bell.
909 \b Backspace.
911 \c Stop printing from this format immediately and flush the
913 output.
914 \f Form feed.
916 \n Newline.
918 \r Carriage return.
920 \t Horizontal tab.
922 \v Vertical tab.
924 \0 ASCII NUL.
926 \\ A literal backslash (`\').
928 \NNN The character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal).
930 A `\' character followed by any other character is treated as an
932 ordinary character, so they both are printed.
933 %% A literal percent sign.
935 %a File's last access time in the format returned by the C
937 `ctime' function.
938 %Ak File's last access time in the format specified by k,
940 which is either `@' or a directive for the C `strftime'
941 function. The possible values for k are listed below;
942 some of them might not be available on all systems, due
943 to differences in `strftime' between systems.
944 @ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with frac‐
946 tional part.
947 Time fields:
949 H hour (00..23)
951 I hour (01..12)
953 k hour ( 0..23)
955 l hour ( 1..12)
957 M minute (00..59)
959 p locale's AM or PM
961 r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
963 S Second (00.00 .. 61.00). There is a fractional
965 part.
966 T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
968 + Date and time, separated by `+', for example
970 `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'. This is a GNU extension.
971 The time is given in the current timezone (which
972 may be affected by setting the TZ environment
973 variable). The seconds field includes a frac‐
974 tional part.
975 X locale's time representation (H:M:S)
977 Z time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone
979 is determinable
980 Date fields:
982 a locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
984 A locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sun‐
986 day..Saturday)
987 b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
989 B locale's full month name, variable length (Janu‐
991 ary..December)
992 c locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST
994 1989). The format is the same as for ctime(3) and
995 so to preserve compatibility with that format,
996 there is no fractional part in the seconds field.
997 d day of month (01..31)
999 D date (mm/dd/yy)
1001 h same as b
1003 j day of year (001..366)
1005 m month (01..12)
1007 U week number of year with Sunday as first day of
1009 week (00..53)
1010 w day of week (0..6)
1012 W week number of year with Monday as first day of
1014 week (00..53)
1015 x locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
1017 y last two digits of year (00..99)
1019 Y year (1970...)
1021 %b The amount of disk space used for this file in 512-byte
1023 blocks. Since disk space is allocated in multiples of
1024 the filesystem block size this is usually greater than
1025 %s/512, but it can also be smaller if the file is a
1026 sparse file.
1027 %c File's last status change time in the format returned by
1029 the C `ctime' function.
1030 %Ck File's last status change time in the format specified by
1032 k, which is the same as for %A.
1033 %d File's depth in the directory tree; 0 means the file is a
1035 starting-point.
1036 %D The device number on which the file exists (the st_dev
1038 field of struct stat), in decimal.
1039 %f File's name with any leading directories removed (only
1041 the last element).
1042 %F Type of the filesystem the file is on; this value can be
1044 used for -fstype.
1045 %g File's group name, or numeric group ID if the group has
1047 no name.
1048 %G File's numeric group ID.
1050 %h Leading directories of file's name (all but the last ele‐
1052 ment). If the file name contains no slashes (since it is
1053 in the current directory) the %h specifier expands to
1054 ".".
1055 %H Starting-point under which file was found.
1057 %i File's inode number (in decimal).
1059 %k The amount of disk space used for this file in 1K blocks.
1061 Since disk space is allocated in multiples of the
1062 filesystem block size this is usually greater than
1063 %s/1024, but it can also be smaller if the file is a
1064 sparse file.
1065 %l Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a
1067 symbolic link).
1068 %m File's permission bits (in octal). This option uses the
1070 `traditional' numbers which most Unix implementations
1071 use, but if your particular implementation uses an
1072 unusual ordering of octal permissions bits, you will see
1073 a difference between the actual value of the file's mode
1074 and the output of %m. Normally you will want to have a
1075 leading zero on this number, and to do this, you should
1076 use the # flag (as in, for example, `%#m').
1077 %M File's permissions (in symbolic form, as for ls). This
1079 directive is supported in findutils 4.2.5 and later.
1080 %n Number of hard links to file.
1082 %p File's name.
1084 %P File's name with the name of the starting-point under
1086 which it was found removed.
1087 %s File's size in bytes.
1089 %S File's sparseness. This is calculated as (BLOCK‐
1091 SIZE*st_blocks / st_size). The exact value you will get
1092 for an ordinary file of a certain length is system-depen‐
1093 dent. However, normally sparse files will have values
1094 less than 1.0, and files which use indirect blocks may
1095 have a value which is greater than 1.0. The value used
1096 for BLOCKSIZE is system-dependent, but is usually 512
1097 bytes. If the file size is zero, the value printed is
1098 undefined. On systems which lack support for st_blocks,
1099 a file's sparseness is assumed to be 1.0.
1100 %t File's last modification time in the format returned by
1102 the C `ctime' function.
1103 %Tk File's last modification time in the format specified by
1105 k, which is the same as for %A.
1106 %u File's user name, or numeric user ID if the user has no
1108 name.
1109 %U File's numeric user ID.
1111 %y File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't
1113 happen)
1114 %Y File's type (like %y), plus follow symlinks: L=loop,
1116 N=nonexistent
1117 %Z (SELinux only) file's security context.
1119 %{ %[ %(
1121 Reserved for future use.
1122 A `%' character followed by any other character is discarded,
1124 but the other character is printed (don't rely on this, as fur‐
1125 ther format characters may be introduced). A `%' at the end of
1126 the format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no
1127 following character. In some locales, it may hide your door
1128 keys, while in others it may remove the final page from the
1129 novel you are reading.
1130 The %m and %d directives support the # , 0 and + flags, but the
1132 other directives do not, even if they print numbers. Numeric
1133 directives that do not support these flags include G, U, b, D, k
1134 and n. The `-' format flag is supported and changes the align‐
1135 ment of a field from right-justified (which is the default) to
1136 left-justified.
1137 See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how
1139 unusual characters in filenames are handled.
1140 -prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it. If
1144 -depth is given, false; no effect. Because -delete implies
1145 -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.
1146 -quit Exit immediately. No child processes will be left running, but
1149 no more paths specified on the command line will be processed.
1150 For example, find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit will print only
1151 /tmp/foo. Any command lines which have been built up with
1152 -execdir ... {} + will be invoked before find exits. The exit
1153 status may or may not be zero, depending on whether an error has
1154 already occurred.
1155 OPERATORS
1158 Listed in order of decreasing precedence:
1159 ( expr )
1162 Force precedence. Since parentheses are special to the shell,
1163 you will normally need to quote them. Many of the examples in
1164 this manual page use backslashes for this purpose: `\(...\)'
1165 instead of `(...)'.
1166 ! expr True if expr is false. This character will also usually need
1169 protection from interpretation by the shell.
1170 -not expr
1173 Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
1174 expr1 expr2
1177 Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied
1178 "and"; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is false.
1179 expr1 -a expr2
1182 Same as expr1 expr2.
1183 expr1 -and expr2
1186 Same as expr1 expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
1187 expr1 -o expr2
1190 Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
1191 expr1 -or expr2
1194 Same as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
1195 expr1 , expr2
1198 List; both expr1 and expr2 are always evaluated. The value of
1199 expr1 is discarded; the value of the list is the value of expr2.
1200 The comma operator can be useful for searching for several dif‐
1201 ferent types of thing, but traversing the filesystem hierarchy
1202 only once. The -fprintf action can be used to list the various
1203 matched items into several different output files.
1204
1208 Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is
1209 under the control of other users. This includes file names, sizes,
1210 modification times and so forth. File names are a potential problem
1211 since they can contain any character except `\0' and `/'. Unusual
1212 characters in file names can do unexpected and often undesirable things
1213 to your terminal (for example, changing the settings of your function
1214 keys on some terminals). Unusual characters are handled differently by
1215 various actions, as described below.
1216 -print0, -fprint0
1219 Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output
1220 is going to a terminal.
1221 -ls, -fls
1224 Unusual characters are always escaped. White space, backslash,
1225 and double quote characters are printed using C-style escaping
1226 (for example `\f', `\"'). Other unusual characters are printed
1227 using an octal escape. Other printable characters (for -ls and
1228 -fls these are the characters between octal 041 and 0176) are
1229 printed as-is.
1230 -printf, -fprintf
1233 If the output is not going to a terminal, it is printed as-is.
1234 Otherwise, the result depends on which directive is in use. The
1235 directives %D, %F, %g, %G, %H, %Y, and %y expand to values which
1236 are not under control of files' owners, and so are printed as-
1237 is. The directives %a, %b, %c, %d, %i, %k, %m, %M, %n, %s, %t,
1238 %u and %U have values which are under the control of files' own‐
1239 ers but which cannot be used to send arbitrary data to the ter‐
1240 minal, and so these are printed as-is. The directives %f, %h,
1241 %l, %p and %P are quoted. This quoting is performed in the same
1242 way as for GNU ls. This is not the same quoting mechanism as
1243 the one used for -ls and -fls. If you are able to decide what
1244 format to use for the output of find then it is normally better
1245 to use `\0' as a terminator than to use newline, as file names
1246 can contain white space and newline characters. The setting of
1247 the `LC_CTYPE' environment variable is used to determine which
1248 characters need to be quoted.
1249 -print, -fprint
1252 Quoting is handled in the same way as for -printf and -fprintf.
1253 If you are using find in a script or in a situation where the
1254 matched files might have arbitrary names, you should consider
1255 using -print0 instead of -print.
1256 The -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is. This may
1258 change in a future release.
1259
1262 For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the
1263 POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable. The following options are speci‐
1264 fied in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition):
1265 -H This option is supported.
1268 -L This option is supported.
1271 -name This option is supported, but POSIX conformance depends on the
1274 POSIX conformance of the system's fnmatch(3) library function.
1275 As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]'
1276 for example) will match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC inter‐
1277 pretation 126 requires this. This is a change from previous
1278 versions of findutils.
1279 -type Supported. POSIX specifies `b', `c', `d', `l', `p', `f' and
1282 `s'. GNU find also supports `D', representing a Door, where the
1283 OS provides these.
1284 -ok Supported. Interpretation of the response is according to the
1287 "yes" and "no" patterns selected by setting the `LC_MESSAGES'
1288 environment variable. When the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment
1289 variable is set, these patterns are taken system's definition of
1290 a positive (yes) or negative (no) response. See the system's
1291 documentation for nl_langinfo(3), in particular YESEXPR and
1292 NOEXPR. When `POSIXLY_CORRECT' is not set, the patterns are
1293 instead taken from find's own message catalogue.
1294 -newer Supported. If the file specified is a symbolic link, it is
1297 always dereferenced. This is a change from previous behaviour,
1298 which used to take the relevant time from the symbolic link; see
1299 the HISTORY section below.
1300 -perm Supported. If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not
1303 set, some mode arguments (for example +a+x) which are not valid
1304 in POSIX are supported for backward-compatibility.
1305 Other predicates
1308 The predicates -atime, -ctime, -depth, -group, -links, -mtime,
1309 -nogroup, -nouser, -print, -prune, -size, -user and -xdev
1310 `-atime', `-ctime', `-depth', `-group', `-links', `-mtime',
1311 `-nogroup', `-nouser', `-perm', `-print', `-prune', `-size',
1312 `-user' and `-xdev', are all supported.
1313 The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the
1316 `and' and `or' operators ( -a, -o).
1317 All other options, predicates, expressions and so forth are extensions
1319 beyond the POSIX standard. Many of these extensions are not unique to
1320 GNU find, however.
1321 The POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:
1323 The find utility shall detect infinite loops; that is, entering
1325 a previously visited directory that is an ancestor of the last
1326 file encountered. When it detects an infinite loop, find shall
1327 write a diagnostic message to standard error and shall either
1328 recover its position in the hierarchy or terminate.
1329 GNU find complies with these requirements. The link count of directo‐
1331 ries which contain entries which are hard links to an ancestor will
1332 often be lower than they otherwise should be. This can mean that GNU
1333 find will sometimes optimise away the visiting of a subdirectory which
1334 is actually a link to an ancestor. Since find does not actually enter
1335 such a subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic mes‐
1336 sage. Although this behaviour may be somewhat confusing, it is
1337 unlikely that anybody actually depends on this behaviour. If the leaf
1338 optimisation has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry will
1339 always be examined and the diagnostic message will be issued where it
1340 is appropriate. Symbolic links cannot be used to create filesystem
1341 cycles as such, but if the -L option or the -follow option is in use, a
1342 diagnostic message is issued when find encounters a loop of symbolic
1343 links. As with loops containing hard links, the leaf optimisation will
1344 often mean that find knows that it doesn't need to call stat() or
1345 chdir() on the symbolic link, so this diagnostic is frequently not nec‐
1346 essary.
1347 The -d option is supported for compatibility with various BSD systems,
1349 but you should use the POSIX-compliant option -depth instead.
1350 The POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable does not affect the behaviour
1352 of the -regex or -iregex tests because those tests aren't specified in
1353 the POSIX standard.
1354
1356 LANG Provides a default value for the internationalization variables
1357 that are unset or null.
1358 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all
1361 the other internationalization variables.
1362 LC_COLLATE
1365 The POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pat‐
1366 tern matching to be used for the -name option. GNU find uses
1367 the fnmatch(3) library function, and so support for `LC_COLLATE'
1368 depends on the system library. This variable also affects the
1369 interpretation of the response to -ok; while the `LC_MESSAGES'
1370 variable selects the actual pattern used to interpret the
1371 response to -ok, the interpretation of any bracket expressions
1372 in the pattern will be affected by `LC_COLLATE'.
1373 LC_CTYPE
1376 This variable affects the treatment of character classes used in
1377 regular expressions and also with the -name test, if the sys‐
1378 tem's fnmatch(3) library function supports this. This variable
1379 also affects the interpretation of any character classes in the
1380 regular expressions used to interpret the response to the prompt
1381 issued by -ok. The `LC_CTYPE' environment variable will also
1382 affect which characters are considered to be unprintable when
1383 filenames are printed; see the section UNUSUAL FILENAMES.
1384 LC_MESSAGES
1387 Determines the locale to be used for internationalised messages.
1388 If the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, this also
1389 determines the interpretation of the response to the prompt made
1390 by the -ok action.
1391 NLSPATH
1394 Determines the location of the internationalisation message cat‐
1395 alogues.
1396 PATH Affects the directories which are searched to find the executa‐
1399 bles invoked by -exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir.
1400 POSIXLY_CORRECT
1403 Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls. If POSIXLY_COR‐
1404 RECT is set, blocks are units of 512 bytes. Otherwise they are
1405 units of 1024 bytes.
1406 Setting this variable also turns off warning messages (that is,
1408 implies -nowarn) by default, because POSIX requires that apart
1409 from the output for -ok, all messages printed on stderr are
1410 diagnostics and must result in a non-zero exit status.
1411 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just like
1413 -perm /zzz if +zzz is not a valid symbolic mode. When
1414 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, such constructs are treated as an error.
1415 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made by
1417 the -ok action is interpreted according to the system's message
1418 catalogue, as opposed to according to find's own message trans‐
1419 lations.
1420 TZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format
1423 directives of -printf and -fprintf.
1424
1426 find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
1427 Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them.
1429 Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames con‐
1430 taining newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces.
1431 find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
1433 Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them,
1435 processing filenames in such a way that file or directory names con‐
1436 taining single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly han‐
1437 dled. The -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid
1438 having to call stat(2) on every file.
1439 find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;
1442 Runs `file' on every file in or below the current directory. Notice
1444 that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to protect them from
1445 interpretation as shell script punctuation. The semicolon is similarly
1446 protected by the use of a backslash, though single quotes could have
1447 been used in that case also.
1448 find / \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \
1451 \( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)
1452 Traverse the filesystem just once, listing setuid files and directories
1454 into /root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.
1455 find $HOME -mtime 0
1458 Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the
1460 last twenty-four hours. This command works this way because the time
1461 since each file was last modified is divided by 24 hours and any
1462 remainder is discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0, a file will
1463 have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours
1464 ago.
1465 find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
1468 Search for files which are executable but not readable.
1470 find . -perm 664
1473 Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner,
1475 and group, but which other users can read but not write to. Files
1476 which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits set (for
1477 example if someone can execute the file) will not be matched.
1478 find . -perm -664
1481 Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner
1483 and group, and which other users can read, without regard to the pres‐
1484 ence of any extra permission bits (for example the executable bit).
1485 This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
1486 find . -perm /222
1489 Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their
1491 group, or anybody else).
1492 find . -perm /220
1495 find . -perm /u+w,g+w
1496 find . -perm /u=w,g=w
1497 All three of these commands do the same thing, but the first one uses
1499 the octal representation of the file mode, and the other two use the
1500 symbolic form. These commands all search for files which are writable
1501 by either their owner or their group. The files don't have to be
1502 writable by both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.
1503 find . -perm -220
1506 find . -perm -g+w,u+w
1507 Both these commands do the same thing; search for files which are
1509 writable by both their owner and their group.
1510 find . -perm -444 -perm /222 ! -perm /111
1513 find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w ! -perm /a+x
1514 These two commands both search for files that are readable for every‐
1516 body ( -perm -444 or -perm -a+r), have at least one write bit set (
1517 -perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not executable for anybody ( ! -perm
1518 /111 and ! -perm /a+x respectively).
1519 cd /source-dir
1522 find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name *~ -print0 \)|
1523 cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir
1524 This command copies the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omits
1526 files and directories named .snapshot (and anything in them). It also
1527 omits files or directories whose name ends in ~, but not their con‐
1528 tents. The construct -prune -o \( ... -print0 \) is quite common. The
1529 idea here is that the expression before -prune matches things which are
1530 to be pruned. However, the -prune action itself returns true, so the
1531 following -o ensures that the right hand side is evaluated only for
1532 those directories which didn't get pruned (the contents of the pruned
1533 directories are not even visited, so their contents are irrelevant).
1534 The expression on the right hand side of the -o is in parentheses only
1535 for clarity. It emphasises that the -print0 action takes place only
1536 for things that didn't have -prune applied to them. Because the
1537 default `and' condition between tests binds more tightly than -o, this
1538 is the default anyway, but the parentheses help to show what is going
1539 on.
1540 find repo/ -exec test -d {}/.svn \; -or \
1543 -exec test -d {}/.git \; -or -exec test -d {}/CVS \; \
1544 -print -prune
1545 Given the following directory of projects and their associated SCM
1547 administrative directories, perform an efficient search for the
1548 projects' roots:
1549 repo/project1/CVS
1551 repo/gnu/project2/.svn
1552 repo/gnu/project3/.svn
1553 repo/gnu/project3/src/.svn
1554 repo/project4/.git
1555 In this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into directories
1557 that have already been discovered (for example we do not search
1558 project3/src because we already found project3/.svn), but ensures sib‐
1559 ling directories (project2 and project3) are found.
1560
1563 find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully,
1564 greater than 0 if errors occur. This is deliberately a very broad
1565 description, but if the return value is non-zero, you should not rely
1566 on the correctness of the results of find.
1567 When some error occurs, find may stop immediately, without completing
1569 all the actions specified. For example, some starting points may not
1570 have been examined or some pending program invocations for -exec ... {}
1571 + or -execdir ... {} + may not have been performed.
1572
1576 locate(1), locatedb(5), updatedb(1), xargs(1), chmod(1), fnmatch(3),
1577 regex(7), stat(2), lstat(2), ls(1), printf(3), strftime(3), ctime(3)
1578 The full documentation for find is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If
1580 the info and find programs are properly installed at your site, the
1581 command info find should give you access to the complete manual.
1582
1585 As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for exam‐
1586 ple) used in filename patterns will match a leading `.', because IEEE
1587 POSIX interpretation 126 requires this.
1588 As of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of
1590 none.
1591 Nanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.
1593 As of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to a
1595 nonzero value when it fails. However, find will not exit immediately.
1596 Previously, find's exit status was unaffected by the failure of
1597 -delete.
1598 Feature Added in Also occurs in
1600 -newerXY 4.3.3 BSD
1601 -D 4.3.1
1602 -O 4.3.1
1603 -readable 4.3.0
1604 -writable 4.3.0
1605 -executable 4.3.0
1606 -regextype 4.2.24
1607 -exec ... + 4.2.12 POSIX
1608 -execdir 4.2.12 BSD
1609 -okdir 4.2.12
1610 -samefile 4.2.11
1611 -H 4.2.5 POSIX
1612 -L 4.2.5 POSIX
1613 -P 4.2.5 BSD
1614 -delete 4.2.3
1615 -quit 4.2.3
1616 -d 4.2.3 BSD
1617 -wholename 4.2.0
1618 -iwholename 4.2.0
1619 -ignore_readdir_race 4.2.0
1620 -fls 4.0
1621 -ilname 3.8
1622 -iname 3.8
1623 -ipath 3.8
1624 -iregex 3.8
1625 The syntax -perm +MODE was removed in findutils-4.5.12, in favour of
1627 -perm /MODE. The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since findu‐
1628 tils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.
1629
1631 $ find . -name *.c -print
1632 find: paths must precede expression
1633 Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]
1634 This happens because *.c has been expanded by the shell resulting in
1636 find actually receiving a command line like this:
1637 find . -name bigram.c code.c frcode.c locate.c -print
1639 That command is of course not going to work. Instead of doing things
1641 this way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the wild‐
1642 card:
1643 $ find . -name '*.c' -print
1644 $ find . -name \*.c -print
1645
1648 There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX
1649 standard specifies for find, which therefore cannot be fixed. For
1650 example, the -exec action is inherently insecure, and -execdir should
1651 be used instead. Please see Finding Files for more information.
1652 The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
1654 The best way to report a bug is to use the form at http://savan‐
1656 nah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils. The reason for this is that you
1657 will then be able to track progress in fixing the problem. Other com‐
1658 ments about find(1) and about the findutils package in general can be
1659 sent to the bug-findutils mailing list. To join the list, send email
1660 to bug-findutils-request@gnu.org.
1661 FIND(1)