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...] [ex‐
10 pression]
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 de‐
26 tail 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 -- could theoretically be used to signal that any remaining argu‐
44 ments are not options, but this does not really work due to the way
45 find determines the end of the following path arguments: it does that
46 by reading until an expression argument comes (which also starts with a
47 `-'). Now, if a path argument would start with a `-', then find would
48 treat it as expression argument instead. Thus, to ensure that all
49 start points are taken as such, and especially to prevent that wildcard
50 patterns expanded by the calling shell are not mistakenly treated as
51 expression arguments, it is generally safer to prefix wildcards or du‐
52 bious path names with either `./' or to use absolute path names start‐
53 ing with '/'.
54 -P Never follow symbolic links. This is the default behaviour.
56 When find examines or prints information about files, and the
57 file is a symbolic link, the information used shall be taken
58 from the properties of the symbolic link itself.
59 -L Follow symbolic links. When find examines or prints information
62 about files, the information used shall be taken from the prop‐
63 erties of the file to which the link points, not from the link
64 itself (unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is unable to
65 examine the file to which the link points). Use of this option
66 implies -noleaf. If you later use the -P option, -noleaf will
67 still be in effect. If -L is in effect and find discovers a
68 symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search, the subdirec‐
69 tory pointed to by the symbolic link will be searched.
70 When the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always
72 match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points
73 to rather than the link itself (unless the symbolic link is bro‐
74 ken). Actions that can cause symbolic links to become broken
75 while find is executing (for example -delete) can give rise to
76 confusing behaviour. Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname
77 predicates always to return false.
78 -H Do not follow symbolic links, except while processing the com‐
81 mand line arguments. When find examines or prints information
82 about files, the information used shall be taken from the prop‐
83 erties of the symbolic link itself. The only exception to this
84 behaviour is when a file specified on the command line is a sym‐
85 bolic link, and the link can be resolved. For that situation,
86 the information used is taken from whatever the link points to
87 (that is, the link is followed). The information about the link
88 itself is used as a fallback if the file pointed to by the sym‐
89 bolic link cannot be examined. If -H is in effect and one of
90 the paths specified on the command line is a symbolic link to a
91 directory, the contents of that directory will be examined
92 (though of course -maxdepth 0 would prevent this).
93 If more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each overrides the oth‐
95 ers; the last one appearing on the command line takes effect. Since it
96 is the default, the -P option should be considered to be in effect un‐
97 less either -H or -L is specified.
98 GNU find frequently stats files during the processing of the command
100 line itself, before any searching has begun. These options also affect
101 how those arguments are processed. Specifically, there are a number of
102 tests that compare files listed on the command line against a file we
103 are currently considering. In each case, the file specified on the
104 command line will have been examined and some of its properties will
105 have been saved. If the named file is in fact a symbolic link, and the
106 -P option is in effect (or if neither -H nor -L were specified), the
107 information used for the comparison will be taken from the properties
108 of the symbolic link. Otherwise, it will be taken from the properties
109 of the file the link points to. If find cannot follow the link (for
110 example because it has insufficient privileges or the link points to a
111 nonexistent file) the properties of the link itself will be used.
112 When the -H or -L options are in effect, any symbolic links listed as
114 the argument of -newer will be dereferenced, and the timestamp will be
115 taken from the file to which the symbolic link points. The same con‐
116 sideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer.
117 The -follow option has a similar effect to -L, though it takes effect
119 at the point where it appears (that is, if -L is not used but -follow
120 is, any symbolic links appearing after -follow on the command line will
121 be dereferenced, and those before it will not).
122 -D debugopts
125 Print diagnostic information; this can be helpful to diagnose
126 problems with why find is not doing what you want. The list of
127 debug options should be comma separated. Compatibility of the
128 debug options is not guaranteed between releases of findutils.
129 For a complete list of valid debug options, see the output of
130 find -D help. Valid debug options include
131 exec Show diagnostic information relating to -exec, -execdir,
133 -ok and -okdir
134 opt Prints diagnostic information relating to the optimisa‐
136 tion of the expression tree; see the -O option.
137 rates Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate suc‐
139 ceeded or failed.
140 search Navigate the directory tree verbosely.
142 stat Print messages as files are examined with the stat and
144 lstat system calls. The find program tries to minimise
145 such calls.
146 tree Show the expression tree in its original and optimised
148 form.
149 all Enable all of the other debug options (but help).
151 help Explain the debugging options.
153 -Olevel
155 Enables query optimisation. The find program reorders tests to
156 speed up execution while preserving the overall effect; that is,
157 predicates with side effects are not reordered relative to each
158 other. The optimisations performed at each optimisation level
159 are as follows.
160 0 Equivalent to optimisation level 1.
162 1 This is the default optimisation level and corresponds to
164 the traditional behaviour. Expressions are reordered so
165 that tests based only on the names of files (for example
166 -name and -regex) are performed first.
167 2 Any -type or -xtype tests are performed after any tests
169 based only on the names of files, but before any tests
170 that require information from the inode. On many modern
171 versions of Unix, file types are returned by readdir()
172 and so these predicates are faster to evaluate than pred‐
173 icates which need to stat the file first. If you use the
174 -fstype FOO predicate and specify a filesystem type FOO
175 which is not known (that is, present in `/etc/mtab') at
176 the time find starts, that predicate is equivalent to
177 -false.
178 3 At this optimisation level, the full cost-based query op‐
180 timiser is enabled. The order of tests is modified so
181 that cheap (i.e. fast) tests are performed first and more
182 expensive ones are performed later, if necessary. Within
183 each cost band, predicates are evaluated earlier or later
184 according to whether they are likely to succeed or not.
185 For -o, predicates which are likely to succeed are evalu‐
186 ated earlier, and for -a, predicates which are likely to
187 fail are evaluated earlier.
188 The cost-based optimiser has a fixed idea of how likely any
190 given test is to succeed. In some cases the probability takes
191 account of the specific nature of the test (for example, -type f
192 is assumed to be more likely to succeed than -type c). The
193 cost-based optimiser is currently being evaluated. If it does
194 not actually improve the performance of find, it will be removed
195 again. Conversely, optimisations that prove to be reliable, ro‐
196 bust and effective may be enabled at lower optimisation levels
197 over time. However, the default behaviour (i.e. optimisation
198 level 1) will not be changed in the 4.3.x release series. The
199 findutils test suite runs all the tests on find at each optimi‐
200 sation level and ensures that the result is the same.
201
203 The part of the command line after the list of starting points is the
204 expression. This is a kind of query specification describing how we
205 match files and what we do with the files that were matched. An ex‐
206 pression is composed of a sequence of things:
207 Tests Tests return a true or false value, usually on the basis of some
210 property of a file we are considering. The -empty test for ex‐
211 ample is true only when the current file is empty.
212 Actions
215 Actions have side effects (such as printing something on the
216 standard output) and return either true or false, usually based
217 on whether or not they are successful. The -print action for
218 example prints the name of the current file on the standard out‐
219 put.
220 Global options
223 Global options affect the operation of tests and actions speci‐
224 fied on any part of the command line. Global options always re‐
225 turn true. The -depth option for example makes find traverse
226 the file system in a depth-first order.
227 Positional options
230 Positional options affect only tests or actions which follow
231 them. Positional options always return true. The -regextype
232 option for example is positional, specifying the regular expres‐
233 sion dialect for regular expressions occurring later on the com‐
234 mand line.
235 Operators
238 Operators join together the other items within the expression.
239 They include for example -o (meaning logical OR) and -a (meaning
240 logical AND). Where an operator is missing, -a is assumed.
241 The -print action is performed on all files for which the whole expres‐
244 sion is true, unless it contains an action other than -prune or -quit.
245 Actions which inhibit the default -print are -delete, -exec, -execdir,
246 -ok, -okdir, -fls, -fprint, -fprintf, -ls, -print and -printf.
247 The -delete action also acts like an option (since it implies -depth).
250 POSITIONAL OPTIONS
253 Positional options always return true. They affect only tests occur‐
254 ring later on the command line.
255 -daystart
258 Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and
259 -mtime) from the beginning of today rather than from 24 hours
260 ago. This option only affects tests which appear later on the
261 command line.
262 -follow
265 Deprecated; use the -L option instead. Dereference symbolic
266 links. Implies -noleaf. The -follow option affects only those
267 tests which appear after it on the command line. Unless the -H
268 or -L option has been specified, the position of the -follow op‐
269 tion changes the behaviour of the -newer predicate; any files
270 listed as the argument of -newer will be dereferenced if they
271 are symbolic links. The same consideration applies to -newerXY,
272 -anewer and -cnewer. Similarly, the -type predicate will always
273 match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points
274 to rather than the link itself. Using -follow causes the -lname
275 and -ilname predicates always to return false.
276 -regextype type
279 Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and
280 -iregex tests which occur later on the command line. To see
281 which regular expression types are known, use -regextype help.
282 The Texinfo documentation (see SEE ALSO) explains the meaning of
283 and differences between the various types of regular expression.
284 -warn, -nowarn
287 Turn warning messages on or off. These warnings apply only to
288 the command line usage, not to any conditions that find might
289 encounter when it searches directories. The default behaviour
290 corresponds to -warn if standard input is a tty, and to -nowarn
291 otherwise. If a warning message relating to command-line usage
292 is produced, the exit status of find is not affected. If the
293 POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set, and -warn is also
294 used, it is not specified which, if any, warnings will be ac‐
295 tive.
296 GLOBAL OPTIONS
299 Global options always return true. Global options take effect even for
300 tests which occur earlier on the command line. To prevent confusion,
301 global options should specified on the command-line after the list of
302 start points, just before the first test, positional option or action.
303 If you specify a global option in some other place, find will issue a
304 warning message explaining that this can be confusing.
305 The global options occur after the list of start points, and so are not
307 the same kind of option as -L, for example.
308 -d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD,
311 MacOS X and OpenBSD.
312 -depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself.
315 The -delete action also implies -depth.
316 -help, --help
319 Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.
320 -ignore_readdir_race
323 Normally, find will emit an error message when it fails to stat
324 a file. If you give this option and a file is deleted between
325 the time find reads the name of the file from the directory and
326 the time it tries to stat the file, no error message will be is‐
327 sued. This also applies to files or directories whose names are
328 given on the command line. This option takes effect at the time
329 the command line is read, which means that you cannot search one
330 part of the filesystem with this option on and part of it with
331 this option off (if you need to do that, you will need to issue
332 two find commands instead, one with the option and one without
333 it).
334 Furthermore, find with the -ignore_readdir_race option will ig‐
336 nore errors of the -delete action in the case the file has dis‐
337 appeared since the parent directory was read: it will not output
338 an error diagnostic, and the return code of the -delete action
339 will be true.
340 -maxdepth levels
343 Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of direc‐
344 tories below the starting-points. Using -maxdepth 0 means only
345 apply the tests and actions to the starting-points themselves.
346 -mindepth levels
349 Do not apply any tests or actions at levels less than levels (a
350 non-negative integer). Using -mindepth 1 means process all
351 files except the starting-points.
352 -mount Don't descend directories on other filesystems. An alternate
355 name for -xdev, for compatibility with some other versions of
356 find.
357 -noignore_readdir_race
360 Turns off the effect of -ignore_readdir_race.
361 -noleaf
364 Do not optimize by assuming that directories contain 2 fewer
365 subdirectories than their hard link count. This option is
366 needed when searching filesystems that do not follow the Unix
367 directory-link convention, such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS filesystems
368 or AFS volume mount points. Each directory on a normal Unix
369 filesystem has at least 2 hard links: its name and its `.' en‐
370 try. Additionally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a `..'
371 entry linked to that directory. When find is examining a direc‐
372 tory, after it has statted 2 fewer subdirectories than the di‐
373 rectory's link count, it knows that the rest of the entries in
374 the directory are non-directories (`leaf' files in the directory
375 tree). If only the files' names need to be examined, there is
376 no need to stat them; this gives a significant increase in
377 search speed.
378 -version, --version
381 Print the find version number and exit.
382 -xautofs
385 Don't descend directories on autofs filesystems.
386 -xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems.
389 TESTS
392 Some tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison be‐
393 tween the file currently being examined and some reference file speci‐
394 fied on the command line. When these tests are used, the interpreta‐
395 tion of the reference file is determined by the options -H, -L and -P
396 and any previous -follow, but the reference file is only examined once,
397 at the time the command line is parsed. If the reference file cannot
398 be examined (for example, the stat(2) system call fails for it), an er‐
399 ror message is issued, and find exits with a nonzero status.
400 A numeric argument n can be specified to tests (like -amin, -mtime,
402 -gid, -inum, -links, -size, -uid and -used) as
403 +n for greater than n,
405 -n for less than n,
407 n for exactly n.
409 Supported tests:
411 -amin n
414 File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n minutes
415 ago.
416 -anewer reference
419 Time of the last access of the current file is more recent than
420 that of the last data modification of the reference file. If
421 reference is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L option
422 is in effect, then the time of the last data modification of the
423 file it points to is always used.
424 -atime n
427 File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n*24
428 hours ago. When find figures out how many 24-hour periods ago
429 the file was last accessed, any fractional part is ignored, so
430 to match -atime +1, a file has to have been accessed at least
431 two days ago.
432 -cmin n
435 File's status was last changed less than, more than or exactly n
436 minutes ago.
437 -cnewer reference
440 Time of the last status change of the current file is more re‐
441 cent than that of the last data modification of the reference
442 file. If reference is a symbolic link and the -H option or the
443 -L option is in effect, then the time of the last data modifica‐
444 tion of the file it points to is always used.
445 -ctime n
448 File's status was last changed less than, more than or exactly
449 n*24 hours ago. See the comments for -atime to understand how
450 rounding affects the interpretation of file status change times.
451 -empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.
454 -executable
457 Matches files which are executable and directories which are
458 searchable (in a file name resolution sense) by the current
459 user. This takes into account access control lists and other
460 permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test
461 makes use of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by
462 NFS servers which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many
463 systems implement access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot
464 make use of the UID mapping information held on the server. Be‐
465 cause this test is based only on the result of the access(2)
466 system call, there is no guarantee that a file for which this
467 test succeeds can actually be executed.
468 -false Always false.
471 -fstype type
474 File is on a filesystem of type type. The valid filesystem
475 types vary among different versions of Unix; an incomplete list
476 of filesystem types that are accepted on some version of Unix or
477 another is: ufs, 4.2, 4.3, nfs, tmp, mfs, S51K, S52K. You can
478 use -printf with the %F directive to see the types of your
479 filesystems.
480 -gid n File's numeric group ID is less than, more than or exactly n.
483 -group gname
486 File belongs to group gname (numeric group ID allowed).
487 -ilname pattern
490 Like -lname, but the match is case insensitive. If the -L op‐
491 tion or the -follow option is in effect, this test returns false
492 unless the symbolic link is broken.
493 -iname pattern
497 Like -name, but the match is case insensitive. For example, the
498 patterns `fo*' and `F??' match the file names `Foo', `FOO',
499 `foo', `fOo', etc. The pattern `*foo*` will also match a file
500 called '.foobar'.
501 -inum n
504 File has inode number smaller than, greater than or exactly n.
505 It is normally easier to use the -samefile test instead.
506 -ipath pattern
509 Like -path. but the match is case insensitive.
510 -iregex pattern
513 Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.
514 -iwholename pattern
517 See -ipath. This alternative is less portable than -ipath.
518 -links n
521 File has less than, more than or exactly n hard links.
522 -lname pattern
525 File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pat‐
526 tern. The metacharacters do not treat `/' or `.' specially. If
527 the -L option or the -follow option is in effect, this test re‐
528 turns false unless the symbolic link is broken.
529 -mmin n
532 File's data was last modified less than, more than or exactly n
533 minutes ago.
534 -mtime n
537 File's data was last modified less than, more than or exactly
538 n*24 hours ago. See the comments for -atime to understand how
539 rounding affects the interpretation of file modification times.
540 -name pattern
543 Base of file name (the path with the leading directories re‐
544 moved) matches shell pattern pattern. Because the leading di‐
545 rectories are removed, the file names considered for a match
546 with -name will never include a slash, so `-name a/b' will never
547 match anything (you probably need to use -path instead). A
548 warning is issued if you try to do this, unless the environment
549 variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. The metacharacters (`*', `?',
550 and `[]') match a `.' at the start of the base name (this is a
551 change in findutils-4.2.2; see section STANDARDS CONFORMANCE be‐
552 low). To ignore a directory and the files under it, use -prune
553 rather than checking every file in the tree; see an example in
554 the description of that action. Braces are not recognised as
555 being special, despite the fact that some shells including Bash
556 imbue braces with a special meaning in shell patterns. The
557 filename matching is performed with the use of the fnmatch(3)
558 library function. Don't forget to enclose the pattern in quotes
559 in order to protect it from expansion by the shell.
560 -newer reference
563 Time of the last data modification of the current file is more
564 recent than that of the last data modification of the reference
565 file. If reference is a symbolic link and the -H option or the
566 -L option is in effect, then the time of the last data modifica‐
567 tion of the file it points to is always used.
568 -newerXY reference
571 Succeeds if timestamp X of the file being considered is newer
572 than timestamp Y of the file reference. The letters X and Y can
573 be any of the following letters:
574 a The access time of the file reference
577 B The birth time of the file reference
578 c The inode status change time of reference
579 m The modification time of the file reference
580 t reference is interpreted directly as a time
581 Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for X
583 to be t. Some combinations are not implemented on all systems;
584 for example B is not supported on all systems. If an invalid or
585 unsupported combination of XY is specified, a fatal error re‐
586 sults. Time specifications are interpreted as for the argument
587 to the -d option of GNU date. If you try to use the birth time
588 of a reference file, and the birth time cannot be determined, a
589 fatal error message results. If you specify a test which refers
590 to the birth time of files being examined, this test will fail
591 for any files where the birth time is unknown.
592 -nogroup
595 No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.
596 -nouser
599 No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.
600 -path pattern
603 File name matches shell pattern pattern. The metacharacters do
604 not treat `/' or `.' specially; so, for example,
605 find . -path "./sr*sc"
606 will print an entry for a directory called ./src/misc (if one
607 exists). To ignore a whole directory tree, use -prune rather
608 than checking every file in the tree. Note that the pattern
609 match test applies to the whole file name, starting from one of
610 the start points named on the command line. It would only make
611 sense to use an absolute path name here if the relevant start
612 point is also an absolute path. This means that this command
613 will never match anything:
614 find bar -path /foo/bar/myfile -print
615 Find compares the -path argument with the concatenation of a di‐
616 rectory name and the base name of the file it's examining.
617 Since the concatenation will never end with a slash, -path argu‐
618 ments ending in a slash will match nothing (except perhaps a
619 start point specified on the command line). The predicate -path
620 is also supported by HP-UX find and is part of the POSIX 2008
621 standard.
622 -perm mode
625 File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic).
626 Since an exact match is required, if you want to use this form
627 for symbolic modes, you may have to specify a rather complex
628 mode string. For example `-perm g=w' will only match files
629 which have mode 0020 (that is, ones for which group write per‐
630 mission is the only permission set). It is more likely that you
631 will want to use the `/' or `-' forms, for example `-perm -g=w',
632 which matches any file with group write permission. See the EX‐
633 AMPLES section for some illustrative examples.
634 -perm -mode
637 All of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic
638 modes are accepted in this form, and this is usually the way in
639 which you would want to use them. You must specify `u', `g' or
640 `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for
641 some illustrative examples.
642 -perm /mode
645 Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic
646 modes are accepted in this form. You must specify `u', `g' or
647 `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for
648 some illustrative examples. If no permission bits in mode are
649 set, this test matches any file (the idea here is to be consis‐
650 tent with the behaviour of -perm -000).
651 -perm +mode
654 This is no longer supported (and has been deprecated since
655 2005). Use -perm /mode instead.
656 -readable
659 Matches files which are readable by the current user. This
660 takes into account access control lists and other permissions
661 artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of
662 the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers
663 which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems im‐
664 plement access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot make use
665 of the UID mapping information held on the server.
666 -regex pattern
669 File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match
670 on the whole path, not a search. For example, to match a file
671 named ./fubar3, you can use the regular expression `.*bar.' or
672 `.*b.*3', but not `f.*r3'. The regular expressions understood
673 by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions (except that
674 `.' matches newline), but this can be changed with the -regex‐
675 type option.
676 -samefile name
679 File refers to the same inode as name. When -L is in effect,
680 this can include symbolic links.
681 -size n[cwbkMG]
684 File uses less than, more than or exactly n units of space,
685 rounding up. The following suffixes can be used:
686 `b' for 512-byte blocks (this is the default if no suffix is
688 used)
689 `c' for bytes
691 `w' for two-byte words
693 `k' for kibibytes (KiB, units of 1024 bytes)
695 `M' for mebibytes (MiB, units of 1024 * 1024 = 1048576 bytes)
697 `G' for gibibytes (GiB, units of 1024 * 1024 * 1024 =
699 1073741824 bytes)
700 The size is simply the st_size member of the struct stat popu‐
702 lated by the lstat (or stat) system call, rounded up as shown
703 above. In other words, it's consistent with the result you get
704 for ls -l. Bear in mind that the `%k' and `%b' format speci‐
705 fiers of -printf handle sparse files differently. The `b' suf‐
706 fix always denotes 512-byte blocks and never 1024-byte blocks,
707 which is different to the behaviour of -ls.
708 The + and - prefixes signify greater than and less than, as
710 usual; i.e., an exact size of n units does not match. Bear in
711 mind that the size is rounded up to the next unit. Therefore
712 -size -1M is not equivalent to -size -1048576c. The former only
713 matches empty files, the latter matches files from 0 to
714 1,048,575 bytes.
715 -true Always true.
717 -type c
720 File is of type c:
721 b block (buffered) special
723 c character (unbuffered) special
725 d directory
727 p named pipe (FIFO)
729 f regular file
731 l symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the
733 -follow option is in effect, unless the symbolic link is
734 broken. If you want to search for symbolic links when -L
735 is in effect, use -xtype.
736 s socket
738 D door (Solaris)
740 To search for more than one type at once, you can supply the
742 combined list of type letters separated by a comma `,' (GNU ex‐
743 tension).
744 -uid n File's numeric user ID is less than, more than or exactly n.
746 -used n
749 File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n days
750 after its status was last changed.
751 -user uname
754 File is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).
755 -wholename pattern
758 See -path. This alternative is less portable than -path.
759 -writable
762 Matches files which are writable by the current user. This
763 takes into account access control lists and other permissions
764 artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of
765 the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers
766 which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems im‐
767 plement access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot make use
768 of the UID mapping information held on the server.
769 -xtype c
772 The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link. For sym‐
773 bolic links: if the -H or -P option was specified, true if the
774 file is a link to a file of type c; if the -L option has been
775 given, true if c is `l'. In other words, for symbolic links,
776 -xtype checks the type of the file that -type does not check.
777 -context pattern
779 (SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pat‐
780 tern.
781 ACTIONS
784 -delete
785 Delete files; true if removal succeeded. If the removal failed,
786 an error message is issued. If -delete fails, find's exit sta‐
787 tus will be nonzero (when it eventually exits). Use of -delete
788 automatically turns on the `-depth' option.
789 Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated
791 as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to
792 delete everything below the starting points you specified. When
793 testing a find command line that you later intend to use with
794 -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid
795 later surprises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot
796 usefully use -prune and -delete together.
797 Together with the -ignore_readdir_race option, find will ignore
799 errors of the -delete action in the case the file has disap‐
800 peared since the parent directory was read: it will not output
801 an error diagnostic, and the return code of the -delete action
802 will be true.
803 -exec command ;
806 Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following
807 arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until
808 an argument consisting of `;' is encountered. The string `{}'
809 is replaced by the current file name being processed everywhere
810 it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments
811 where it is alone, as in some versions of find. Both of these
812 constructions might need to be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to
813 protect them from expansion by the shell. See the EXAMPLES sec‐
814 tion for examples of the use of the -exec option. The specified
815 command is run once for each matched file. The command is exe‐
816 cuted in the starting directory. There are unavoidable security
817 problems surrounding use of the -exec action; you should use the
818 -execdir option instead.
819 -exec command {} +
822 This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on
823 the selected files, but the command line is built by appending
824 each selected file name at the end; the total number of invoca‐
825 tions of the command will be much less than the number of
826 matched files. The command line is built in much the same way
827 that xargs builds its command lines. Only one instance of `{}'
828 is allowed within the command, and it must appear at the end,
829 immediately before the `+'; it needs to be escaped (with a `\')
830 or quoted to protect it from interpretation by the shell. The
831 command is executed in the starting directory. If any invoca‐
832 tion with the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit status,
833 then find returns a non-zero exit status. If find encounters an
834 error, this can sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pend‐
835 ing commands may not be run at all. For this reason -exec my-
836 command ... {} + -quit may not result in my-command actually be‐
837 ing run. This variant of -exec always returns true.
838 -execdir command ;
841 -execdir command {} +
843 Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the subdirec‐
844 tory containing the matched file, which is not normally the di‐
845 rectory in which you started find. As with -exec, the {} should
846 be quoted if find is being invoked from a shell. This a much
847 more secure method for invoking commands, as it avoids race con‐
848 ditions during resolution of the paths to the matched files. As
849 with the -exec action, the `+' form of -execdir will build a
850 command line to process more than one matched file, but any
851 given invocation of command will only list files that exist in
852 the same subdirectory. If you use this option, you must ensure
853 that your $PATH environment variable does not reference `.';
854 otherwise, an attacker can run any commands they like by leaving
855 an appropriately-named file in a directory in which you will run
856 -execdir. The same applies to having entries in $PATH which are
857 empty or which are not absolute directory names. If any invoca‐
858 tion with the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit status,
859 then find returns a non-zero exit status. If find encounters an
860 error, this can sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pend‐
861 ing commands may not be run at all. The result of the action
862 depends on whether the + or the ; variant is being used; -ex‐
863 ecdir command {} + always returns true, while -execdir com‐
864 mand {} ; returns true only if command returns 0.
865 -fls file
869 True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint. The output file
870 is always created, even if the predicate is never matched. See
871 the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual
872 characters in filenames are handled.
873 -fprint file
876 True; print the full file name into file file. If file does not
877 exist when find is run, it is created; if it does exist, it is
878 truncated. The file names /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr are han‐
879 dled specially; they refer to the standard output and standard
880 error output, respectively. The output file is always created,
881 even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILE‐
882 NAMES section for information about how unusual characters in
883 filenames are handled.
884 -fprint0 file
887 True; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint. The output
888 file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched.
889 See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how un‐
890 usual characters in filenames are handled.
891 -fprintf file format
894 True; like -printf but write to file like -fprint. The output
895 file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched.
896 See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how un‐
897 usual characters in filenames are handled.
898 -ls True; list current file in ls -dils format on standard output.
901 The block counts are of 1 KB blocks, unless the environment
902 variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, in which case 512-byte blocks
903 are used. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information
904 about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
905 -ok command ;
908 Like -exec but ask the user first. If the user agrees, run the
909 command. Otherwise just return false. If the command is run,
910 its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
911 The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular
914 expressions to determine if it is an affirmative or negative re‐
915 sponse. This regular expression is obtained from the system if
916 the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, or otherwise
917 from find's message translations. If the system has no suitable
918 definition, find's own definition will be used. In either case,
919 the interpretation of the regular expression itself will be af‐
920 fected by the environment variables 'LC_CTYPE' (character
921 classes) and 'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equivalence
922 classes).
923 -okdir command ;
928 Like -execdir but ask the user first in the same way as for -ok.
929 If the user does not agree, just return false. If the command
930 is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
931 -print True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed
934 by a newline. If you are piping the output of find into another
935 program and there is the faintest possibility that the files
936 which you are searching for might contain a newline, then you
937 should seriously consider using the -print0 option instead of
938 -print. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about
939 how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
940 -print0
943 True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed
944 by a null character (instead of the newline character that
945 -print uses). This allows file names that contain newlines or
946 other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by pro‐
947 grams that process the find output. This option corresponds to
948 the -0 option of xargs.
949 -printf format
952 True; print format on the standard output, interpreting `\' es‐
953 capes and `%' directives. Field widths and precisions can be
954 specified as with the printf(3) C function. Please note that
955 many of the fields are printed as %s rather than %d, and this
956 may mean that flags don't work as you might expect. This also
957 means that the `-' flag does work (it forces fields to be left-
958 aligned). Unlike -print, -printf does not add a newline at the
959 end of the string. The escapes and directives are:
960 \a Alarm bell.
962 \b Backspace.
964 \c Stop printing from this format immediately and flush the
966 output.
967 \f Form feed.
969 \n Newline.
971 \r Carriage return.
973 \t Horizontal tab.
975 \v Vertical tab.
977 \0 ASCII NUL.
979 \\ A literal backslash (`\').
981 \NNN The character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal).
983 A `\' character followed by any other character is treated as an
985 ordinary character, so they both are printed.
986 %% A literal percent sign.
988 %a File's last access time in the format returned by the C
990 ctime(3) function.
991 %Ak File's last access time in the format specified by k,
993 which is either `@' or a directive for the C strftime(3)
994 function. The following shows an incomplete list of pos‐
995 sible values for k. Please refer to the documentation of
996 strftime(3) for the full list. Some of the conversion
997 specification characters might not be available on all
998 systems, due to differences in the implementation of the
999 strftime(3) library function.
1000 @ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with frac‐
1002 tional part.
1003 Time fields:
1005 H hour (00..23)
1007 I hour (01..12)
1009 k hour ( 0..23)
1011 l hour ( 1..12)
1013 M minute (00..59)
1015 p locale's AM or PM
1017 r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
1019 S Second (00.00 .. 61.00). There is a fractional
1021 part.
1022 T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss.xxxxxxxxxx)
1024 + Date and time, separated by `+', for example
1026 `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'. This is a GNU extension.
1027 The time is given in the current timezone (which
1028 may be affected by setting the TZ environment
1029 variable). The seconds field includes a frac‐
1030 tional part.
1031 X locale's time representation (H:M:S). The seconds
1033 field includes a fractional part.
1034 Z time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone
1036 is determinable
1037 Date fields:
1039 a locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
1041 A locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sun‐
1043 day..Saturday)
1044 b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
1046 B locale's full month name, variable length (Janu‐
1048 ary..December)
1049 c locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST
1051 1989). The format is the same as for ctime(3) and
1052 so to preserve compatibility with that format,
1053 there is no fractional part in the seconds field.
1054 d day of month (01..31)
1056 D date (mm/dd/yy)
1058 F date (yyyy-mm-dd)
1060 h same as b
1062 j day of year (001..366)
1064 m month (01..12)
1066 U week number of year with Sunday as first day of
1068 week (00..53)
1069 w day of week (0..6)
1071 W week number of year with Monday as first day of
1073 week (00..53)
1074 x locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
1076 y last two digits of year (00..99)
1078 Y year (1970...)
1080 %b The amount of disk space used for this file in 512-byte
1082 blocks. Since disk space is allocated in multiples of
1083 the filesystem block size this is usually greater than
1084 %s/512, but it can also be smaller if the file is a
1085 sparse file.
1086 %c File's last status change time in the format returned by
1088 the C ctime(3) function.
1089 %Ck File's last status change time in the format specified by
1091 k, which is the same as for %A.
1092 %d File's depth in the directory tree; 0 means the file is a
1094 starting-point.
1095 %D The device number on which the file exists (the st_dev
1097 field of struct stat), in decimal.
1098 %f Print the basename; the file's name with any leading di‐
1100 rectories removed (only the last element). For /, the
1101 result is `/'. See the EXAMPLES section for an example.
1102 %F Type of the filesystem the file is on; this value can be
1105 used for -fstype.
1106 %g File's group name, or numeric group ID if the group has
1108 no name.
1109 %G File's numeric group ID.
1111 %h Dirname; the Leading directories of the file's name (all
1113 but the last element). If the file name contains no
1114 slashes (since it is in the current directory) the %h
1115 specifier expands to `.'. For files which are themselves
1116 directories and contain a slash (including /), %h expands
1117 to the empty string. See the EXAMPLES section for an ex‐
1118 ample.
1119 %H Starting-point under which file was found.
1121 %i File's inode number (in decimal).
1123 %k The amount of disk space used for this file in 1 KB
1125 blocks. Since disk space is allocated in multiples of
1126 the filesystem block size this is usually greater than
1127 %s/1024, but it can also be smaller if the file is a
1128 sparse file.
1129 %l Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a
1131 symbolic link).
1132 %m File's permission bits (in octal). This option uses the
1134 `traditional' numbers which most Unix implementations
1135 use, but if your particular implementation uses an un‐
1136 usual ordering of octal permissions bits, you will see a
1137 difference between the actual value of the file's mode
1138 and the output of %m. Normally you will want to have a
1139 leading zero on this number, and to do this, you should
1140 use the # flag (as in, for example, `%#m').
1141 %M File's permissions (in symbolic form, as for ls). This
1143 directive is supported in findutils 4.2.5 and later.
1144 %n Number of hard links to file.
1146 %p File's name.
1148 %P File's name with the name of the starting-point under
1150 which it was found removed.
1151 %s File's size in bytes.
1153 %S File's sparseness. This is calculated as (BLOCK‐
1155 SIZE*st_blocks / st_size). The exact value you will get
1156 for an ordinary file of a certain length is system-depen‐
1157 dent. However, normally sparse files will have values
1158 less than 1.0, and files which use indirect blocks may
1159 have a value which is greater than 1.0. In general the
1160 number of blocks used by a file is file system dependent.
1161 The value used for BLOCKSIZE is system-dependent, but is
1162 usually 512 bytes. If the file size is zero, the value
1163 printed is undefined. On systems which lack support for
1164 st_blocks, a file's sparseness is assumed to be 1.0.
1165 %t File's last modification time in the format returned by
1167 the C ctime(3) function.
1168 %Tk File's last modification time in the format specified by
1170 k, which is the same as for %A.
1171 %u File's user name, or numeric user ID if the user has no
1173 name.
1174 %U File's numeric user ID.
1176 %y File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't
1178 happen)
1179 %Y File's type (like %y), plus follow symbolic links:
1181 `L'=loop, `N'=nonexistent, `?' for any other error when
1182 determining the type of the target of a symbolic link.
1183 %Z (SELinux only) file's security context.
1185 %{ %[ %(
1187 Reserved for future use.
1188 A `%' character followed by any other character is discarded,
1190 but the other character is printed (don't rely on this, as fur‐
1191 ther format characters may be introduced). A `%' at the end of
1192 the format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no
1193 following character. In some locales, it may hide your door
1194 keys, while in others it may remove the final page from the
1195 novel you are reading.
1196 The %m and %d directives support the #, 0 and + flags, but the
1198 other directives do not, even if they print numbers. Numeric
1199 directives that do not support these flags include G, U, b, D, k
1200 and n. The `-' format flag is supported and changes the align‐
1201 ment of a field from right-justified (which is the default) to
1202 left-justified.
1203 See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how un‐
1205 usual characters in filenames are handled.
1206 -prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it. If
1210 -depth is given, then -prune has no effect. Because -delete im‐
1211 plies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete to‐
1212 gether. For example, to skip the directory src/emacs and all
1213 files and directories under it, and print the names of the other
1214 files found, do something like this:
1215 find . -path ./src/emacs -prune -o -print
1216 -quit Exit immediately (with return value zero if no errors have oc‐
1220 curred). This is different to -prune because -prune only ap‐
1221 plies to the contents of pruned directories, while -quit simply
1222 makes find stop immediately. No child processes will be left
1223 running. Any command lines which have been built by -exec ... +
1224 or -execdir ... + are invoked before the program is exited. Af‐
1225 ter -quit is executed, no more files specified on the command
1226 line will be processed. For example,
1227 `find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit` will print only
1228 `/tmp/foo`.
1229 One common use of -quit is to stop searching the file system
1230 once we have found what we want. For example, if we want to
1231 find just a single file we can do this:
1232 find / -name needle -print -quit
1233 OPERATORS
1236 Listed in order of decreasing precedence:
1237 ( expr )
1240 Force precedence. Since parentheses are special to the shell,
1241 you will normally need to quote them. Many of the examples in
1242 this manual page use backslashes for this purpose: `\(...\)' in‐
1243 stead of `(...)'.
1244 ! expr True if expr is false. This character will also usually need
1247 protection from interpretation by the shell.
1248 -not expr
1251 Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
1252 expr1 expr2
1255 Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied
1256 -a; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is false.
1257 expr1 -a expr2
1260 Same as expr1 expr2.
1261 expr1 -and expr2
1264 Same as expr1 expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
1265 expr1 -o expr2
1268 Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
1269 expr1 -or expr2
1272 Same as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
1273 expr1 , expr2
1276 List; both expr1 and expr2 are always evaluated. The value of
1277 expr1 is discarded; the value of the list is the value of expr2.
1278 The comma operator can be useful for searching for several dif‐
1279 ferent types of thing, but traversing the filesystem hierarchy
1280 only once. The -fprintf action can be used to list the various
1281 matched items into several different output files.
1282 Please note that -a when specified implicitly (for example by two tests
1284 appearing without an explicit operator between them) or explicitly has
1285 higher precedence than -o. This means that find . -name afile -o -name
1286 bfile -print will never print afile.
1287
1289 Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is un‐
1290 der the control of other users. This includes file names, sizes, modi‐
1291 fication times and so forth. File names are a potential problem since
1292 they can contain any character except `\0' and `/'. Unusual characters
1293 in file names can do unexpected and often undesirable things to your
1294 terminal (for example, changing the settings of your function keys on
1295 some terminals). Unusual characters are handled differently by various
1296 actions, as described below.
1297 -print0, -fprint0
1300 Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output
1301 is going to a terminal.
1302 -ls, -fls
1305 Unusual characters are always escaped. White space, backslash,
1306 and double quote characters are printed using C-style escaping
1307 (for example `\f', `\"'). Other unusual characters are printed
1308 using an octal escape. Other printable characters (for -ls and
1309 -fls these are the characters between octal 041 and 0176) are
1310 printed as-is.
1311 -printf, -fprintf
1314 If the output is not going to a terminal, it is printed as-is.
1315 Otherwise, the result depends on which directive is in use. The
1316 directives %D, %F, %g, %G, %H, %Y, and %y expand to values which
1317 are not under control of files' owners, and so are printed as-
1318 is. The directives %a, %b, %c, %d, %i, %k, %m, %M, %n, %s, %t,
1319 %u and %U have values which are under the control of files' own‐
1320 ers but which cannot be used to send arbitrary data to the ter‐
1321 minal, and so these are printed as-is. The directives %f, %h,
1322 %l, %p and %P are quoted. This quoting is performed in the same
1323 way as for GNU ls. This is not the same quoting mechanism as
1324 the one used for -ls and -fls. If you are able to decide what
1325 format to use for the output of find then it is normally better
1326 to use `\0' as a terminator than to use newline, as file names
1327 can contain white space and newline characters. The setting of
1328 the `LC_CTYPE' environment variable is used to determine which
1329 characters need to be quoted.
1330 -print, -fprint
1333 Quoting is handled in the same way as for -printf and -fprintf.
1334 If you are using find in a script or in a situation where the
1335 matched files might have arbitrary names, you should consider
1336 using -print0 instead of -print.
1337 The -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is. This may
1339 change in a future release.
1340
1342 For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the
1343 POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable. The following options are speci‐
1344 fied in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, 2016 Edition):
1345 -H This option is supported.
1348 -L This option is supported.
1351 -name This option is supported, but POSIX conformance depends on the
1354 POSIX conformance of the system's fnmatch(3) library function.
1355 As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]'
1356 for example) match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC interpreta‐
1357 tion 126 requires this. This is a change from previous versions
1358 of findutils.
1359 -type Supported. POSIX specifies `b', `c', `d', `l', `p', `f' and
1362 `s'. GNU find also supports `D', representing a Door, where the
1363 OS provides these. Furthermore, GNU find allows multiple types
1364 to be specified at once in a comma-separated list.
1365 -ok Supported. Interpretation of the response is according to the
1368 `yes' and `no' patterns selected by setting the `LC_MESSAGES'
1369 environment variable. When the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment
1370 variable is set, these patterns are taken system's definition of
1371 a positive (yes) or negative (no) response. See the system's
1372 documentation for nl_langinfo(3), in particular YESEXPR and NO‐
1373 EXPR. When `POSIXLY_CORRECT' is not set, the patterns are in‐
1374 stead taken from find's own message catalogue.
1375 -newer Supported. If the file specified is a symbolic link, it is al‐
1378 ways dereferenced. This is a change from previous behaviour,
1379 which used to take the relevant time from the symbolic link; see
1380 the HISTORY section below.
1381 -perm Supported. If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not
1384 set, some mode arguments (for example +a+x) which are not valid
1385 in POSIX are supported for backward-compatibility.
1386 Other primaries
1389 The primaries -atime, -ctime, -depth, -exec, -group, -links,
1390 -mtime, -nogroup, -nouser, -ok, -path, -print, -prune, -size,
1391 -user and -xdev are all supported.
1392 The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the
1395 logical AND/OR operators -a and -o.
1396 All other options, predicates, expressions and so forth are extensions
1398 beyond the POSIX standard. Many of these extensions are not unique to
1399 GNU find, however.
1400 The POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:
1402 The find utility shall detect infinite loops; that is, entering
1404 a previously visited directory that is an ancestor of the last
1405 file encountered. When it detects an infinite loop, find shall
1406 write a diagnostic message to standard error and shall either
1407 recover its position in the hierarchy or terminate.
1408 GNU find complies with these requirements. The link count of directo‐
1410 ries which contain entries which are hard links to an ancestor will of‐
1411 ten be lower than they otherwise should be. This can mean that GNU
1412 find will sometimes optimise away the visiting of a subdirectory which
1413 is actually a link to an ancestor. Since find does not actually enter
1414 such a subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic mes‐
1415 sage. Although this behaviour may be somewhat confusing, it is un‐
1416 likely that anybody actually depends on this behaviour. If the leaf
1417 optimisation has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry will
1418 always be examined and the diagnostic message will be issued where it
1419 is appropriate. Symbolic links cannot be used to create filesystem cy‐
1420 cles as such, but if the -L option or the -follow option is in use, a
1421 diagnostic message is issued when find encounters a loop of symbolic
1422 links. As with loops containing hard links, the leaf optimisation will
1423 often mean that find knows that it doesn't need to call stat() or
1424 chdir() on the symbolic link, so this diagnostic is frequently not nec‐
1425 essary.
1426 The -d option is supported for compatibility with various BSD systems,
1428 but you should use the POSIX-compliant option -depth instead.
1429 The POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable does not affect the behaviour
1431 of the -regex or -iregex tests because those tests aren't specified in
1432 the POSIX standard.
1433
1435 LANG Provides a default value for the internationalization variables
1436 that are unset or null.
1437 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all
1440 the other internationalization variables.
1441 LC_COLLATE
1444 The POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pat‐
1445 tern matching to be used for the -name option. GNU find uses
1446 the fnmatch(3) library function, and so support for `LC_COLLATE'
1447 depends on the system library. This variable also affects the
1448 interpretation of the response to -ok; while the `LC_MESSAGES'
1449 variable selects the actual pattern used to interpret the re‐
1450 sponse to -ok, the interpretation of any bracket expressions in
1451 the pattern will be affected by `LC_COLLATE'.
1452 LC_CTYPE
1455 This variable affects the treatment of character classes used in
1456 regular expressions and also with the -name test, if the sys‐
1457 tem's fnmatch(3) library function supports this. This variable
1458 also affects the interpretation of any character classes in the
1459 regular expressions used to interpret the response to the prompt
1460 issued by -ok. The `LC_CTYPE' environment variable will also
1461 affect which characters are considered to be unprintable when
1462 filenames are printed; see the section UNUSUAL FILENAMES.
1463 LC_MESSAGES
1466 Determines the locale to be used for internationalised messages.
1467 If the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, this also
1468 determines the interpretation of the response to the prompt made
1469 by the -ok action.
1470 NLSPATH
1473 Determines the location of the internationalisation message cat‐
1474 alogues.
1475 PATH Affects the directories which are searched to find the executa‐
1478 bles invoked by -exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir.
1479 POSIXLY_CORRECT
1482 Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls. If POSIXLY_COR‐
1483 RECT is set, blocks are units of 512 bytes. Otherwise they are
1484 units of 1024 bytes.
1485 Setting this variable also turns off warning messages (that is,
1487 implies -nowarn) by default, because POSIX requires that apart
1488 from the output for -ok, all messages printed on stderr are di‐
1489 agnostics and must result in a non-zero exit status.
1490 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just like
1492 -perm /zzz if +zzz is not a valid symbolic mode. When
1493 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, such constructs are treated as an error.
1494 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made by
1496 the -ok action is interpreted according to the system's message
1497 catalogue, as opposed to according to find's own message trans‐
1498 lations.
1499 TZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format
1502 directives of -printf and -fprintf.
1503
1505 Simple `find|xargs` approach
1506 • Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete
1507 them.
1508 $ find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
1510 Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames
1512 containing newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces.
1513 Safer `find -print0 | xargs -0` approach
1515 • Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete
1516 them, processing filenames in such a way that file or directory
1517 names containing single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are
1518 correctly handled.
1519 $ find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
1521 The -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid
1523 having to call stat(2) on every file.
1524 Note that there is still a race between the time find traverses the hi‐
1526 erarchy printing the matching filenames, and the time the process exe‐
1527 cuted by xargs works with that file.
1528 Executing a command for each file
1531 • Run file on every file in or below the current directory.
1532 $ find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;
1534 Notice that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to
1536 protect them from interpretation as shell script punctuation.
1537 The semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash,
1538 though single quotes could have been used in that case also.
1539 In many cases, one might prefer the `-exec ... +` or better the `-ex‐
1541 ecdir ... +` syntax for performance and security reasons.
1542 Traversing the filesystem just once - for 2 different actions
1544 • Traverse the filesystem just once, listing set-user-ID files and
1545 directories into /root/suid.txt and large files into
1546 /root/big.txt.
1547 $ find / \
1549 \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \
1550 \( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)
1551 This example uses the line-continuation character '\' on the
1553 first two lines to instruct the shell to continue reading the
1554 command on the next line.
1555 Searching files by age
1557 • Search for files in your home directory which have been modified
1558 in the last twenty-four hours.
1559 $ find $HOME -mtime 0
1561 This command works this way because the time since each file was
1563 last modified is divided by 24 hours and any remainder is dis‐
1564 carded. That means that to match -mtime 0, a file will have to
1565 have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.
1566 Searching files by permissions
1568 • Search for files which are executable but not readable.
1569 $ find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
1571 • Search for files which have read and write permission for their
1574 owner, and group, but which other users can read but not write
1575 to.
1576 $ find . -perm 664
1578 Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits
1580 set (for example if someone can execute the file) will not be
1581 matched.
1582 • Search for files which have read and write permission for their
1584 owner and group, and which other users can read, without regard
1585 to the presence of any extra permission bits (for example the
1586 executable bit).
1587 $ find . -perm -664
1589 This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
1591 • Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or
1593 their group, or anybody else).
1594 $ find . -perm /222
1596 • Search for files which are writable by either their owner or
1599 their group.
1600 $ find . -perm /220
1602 $ find . -perm /u+w,g+w
1603 $ find . -perm /u=w,g=w
1604 All three of these commands do the same thing, but the first one
1606 uses the octal representation of the file mode, and the other
1607 two use the symbolic form. The files don't have to be writable
1608 by both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.
1609 • Search for files which are writable by both their owner and
1611 their group.
1612 $ find . -perm -220
1614 $ find . -perm -g+w,u+w
1615 Both these commands do the same thing.
1617 • A more elaborate search on permissions.
1619 $ find . -perm -444 -perm /222 \! -perm /111
1621 $ find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w \! -perm /a+x
1622 These two commands both search for files that are readable for
1624 everybody (-perm -444 or -perm -a+r), have at least one write
1625 bit set (-perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not executable for
1626 anybody (! -perm /111 or ! -perm /a+x respectively).
1627 Pruning - omitting files and subdirectories
1629 • Copy the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omit files
1630 and directories named .snapshot (and anything in them). It also
1631 omits files or directories whose name ends in '~', but not their
1632 contents.
1633 $ cd /source-dir
1635 $ find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name '*~' -print0 \) \
1636 | cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir
1637 The construct -prune -o \( ... -print0 \) is quite common. The
1639 idea here is that the expression before -prune matches things
1640 which are to be pruned. However, the -prune action itself re‐
1641 turns true, so the following -o ensures that the right hand side
1642 is evaluated only for those directories which didn't get pruned
1643 (the contents of the pruned directories are not even visited, so
1644 their contents are irrelevant). The expression on the right
1645 hand side of the -o is in parentheses only for clarity. It em‐
1646 phasises that the -print0 action takes place only for things
1647 that didn't have -prune applied to them. Because the default
1648 `and' condition between tests binds more tightly than -o, this
1649 is the default anyway, but the parentheses help to show what is
1650 going on.
1651 • Given the following directory of projects and their associated
1653 SCM administrative directories, perform an efficient search for
1654 the projects' roots:
1655 $ find repo/ \
1657 \( -exec test -d '{}/.svn' \; \
1658 -or -exec test -d '{}/.git' \; \
1659 -or -exec test -d '{}/CVS' \; \
1660 \) -print -prune
1661 Sample output:
1663 repo/project1/CVS
1665 repo/gnu/project2/.svn
1666 repo/gnu/project3/.svn
1667 repo/gnu/project3/src/.svn
1668 repo/project4/.git
1669 In this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into direc‐
1671 tories that have already been discovered (for example we do not
1672 search project3/src because we already found project3/.svn), but
1673 ensures sibling directories (project2 and project3) are found.
1674 Other useful examples
1676 • Search for several file types.
1677 $ find /tmp -type f,d,l
1679 Search for files, directories, and symbolic links in the direc‐
1681 tory /tmp passing these types as a comma-separated list (GNU ex‐
1682 tension), which is otherwise equivalent to the longer, yet more
1683 portable:
1684 $ find /tmp \( -type f -o -type d -o -type l \)
1686 • Search for files with the particular name needle and stop imme‐
1689 diately when we find the first one.
1690 $ find / -name needle -print -quit
1692 • Demonstrate the interpretation of the %f and %h format direc‐
1695 tives of the -printf action for some corner-cases. Here is an
1696 example including some output.
1697 $ find . .. / /tmp /tmp/TRACE compile compile/64/tests/find -maxdepth 0 -printf '[%h][%f]\n'
1699 [.][.]
1700 [.][..]
1701 [][/]
1702 [][tmp]
1703 [/tmp][TRACE]
1704 [.][compile]
1705 [compile/64/tests][find]
1706
1709 find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully,
1710 greater than 0 if errors occur. This is deliberately a very broad de‐
1711 scription, but if the return value is non-zero, you should not rely on
1712 the correctness of the results of find.
1713 When some error occurs, find may stop immediately, without completing
1715 all the actions specified. For example, some starting points may not
1716 have been examined or some pending program invocations for
1717 -exec ... {} + or -execdir ... {} + may not have been performed.
1718
1720 As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for exam‐
1721 ple) used in filename patterns match a leading `.', because IEEE POSIX
1722 interpretation 126 requires this.
1723 As of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of
1725 none.
1726 Nanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.
1728 As of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to a
1730 nonzero value when it fails. However, find will not exit immediately.
1731 Previously, find's exit status was unaffected by the failure of
1732 -delete.
1733 Feature Added in Also occurs in
1735 -newerXY 4.3.3 BSD
1736 -D 4.3.1
1737 -O 4.3.1
1738 -readable 4.3.0
1739 -writable 4.3.0
1740 -executable 4.3.0
1741 -regextype 4.2.24
1742 -exec ... + 4.2.12 POSIX
1743 -execdir 4.2.12 BSD
1744 -okdir 4.2.12
1745 -samefile 4.2.11
1746 -H 4.2.5 POSIX
1747 -L 4.2.5 POSIX
1748 -P 4.2.5 BSD
1749 -delete 4.2.3
1750 -quit 4.2.3
1751 -d 4.2.3 BSD
1752 -wholename 4.2.0
1753 -iwholename 4.2.0
1754 -ignore_readdir_race 4.2.0
1755 -fls 4.0
1756 -ilname 3.8
1757 -iname 3.8
1758 -ipath 3.8
1759 -iregex 3.8
1760 The syntax -perm +MODE was removed in findutils-4.5.12, in favour of
1762 -perm /MODE. The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since findu‐
1763 tils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.
1764
1766 Operator precedence surprises
1767 The command find . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print
1768 afile because this is actually equivalent to find . -name afile -o \(
1769 -name bfile -a -print \). Remember that the precedence of -a is higher
1770 than that of -o and when there is no operator specified between tests,
1771 -a is assumed.
1772 “paths must precede expression” error message
1774 $ find . -name *.c -print
1775 find: paths must precede expression
1776 find: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?
1777 This happens when the shell could expand the pattern *.c to more than
1779 one file name existing in the current directory, and passing the re‐
1780 sulting file names in the command line to find like this:
1781 find . -name frcode.c locate.c word_io.c -print
1782 That command is of course not going to work, because the -name predi‐
1783 cate allows exactly only one pattern as argument. Instead of doing
1784 things this way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the
1785 wildcard, thus allowing find to use the pattern with the wildcard dur‐
1786 ing the search for file name matching instead of file names expanded by
1787 the parent shell:
1788 $ find . -name '*.c' -print
1789 $ find . -name \*.c -print
1790
1792 There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX
1793 standard specifies for find, which therefore cannot be fixed. For ex‐
1794 ample, the -exec action is inherently insecure, and -execdir should be
1795 used instead.
1796 The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
1798
1800 GNU findutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/findu‐
1801 tils/#get-help>
1802 Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
1803 Report any other issue via the form at the GNU Savannah bug tracker:
1805 <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils>
1806 General topics about the GNU findutils package are discussed at the
1807 bug-findutils mailing list:
1808 <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-findutils>
1809
1811 Copyright © 1990-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+:
1812 GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
1813 This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
1814 There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
1815
1817 chmod(1), locate(1), ls(1), updatedb(1), xargs(1), lstat(2), stat(2),
1818 ctime(3) fnmatch(3), printf(3), strftime(3), locatedb(5), regex(7)
1819 Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/find>
1821 or available locally via: info find
1822 FIND(1)