find

find #

Search for files in a directory hierarchy.

Examples:

find ~ -type d | wc -l

List number of directories in home dir

find ~ -type f | wc -l

List number of regular files in home dir

File Types #

File Type	Description
b	Block special device file
c	Character special device file
d	Directory
f	Regular file
l	Symbolic link

find ~ -type f -name "*.jpg" -size +1M | wc -l

Find all .jpg files by type, name, and size.

Size Units #

Character	Unit
b	512-byte blocks. Default if no unit specified
c	Bytes
w	2-byte words
k	Kilobytes
M	Megabytes
G	Gigabytes

Tests #

Test	Description
`-cmin n`	last modified n minutes ago. +/-n more or less than n minutes ago.
`-cnewer file`	files/dirs contents/attributes last modified more recently than file
`-ctime n`	files/dirs contents/attributes last modified n*24 hours ago
`-empty`	empty files/dirs
`-group name`	belonging to group. May be name or ID.
`-iname pattern`	like -name but case-insensitive
`-inum n`	files with inode number n
`-mmin n`	files/dirs whose contents were last modified n minutes ago
`-mtime n`	files/dirs whose contents were last modified n*24 hours ago
`-name pattern`	files/dirs with specified wildcard pattern
`-newer file`	files/dirs whose contents were modified more recently than specified file
`-nouser`	files/dirs that don’t belong to a valid user
`-nogroup`	files/dirs that don’t belong to a valid group
`-perm mode`	files/dirs that have permissions set to the specified mode. Either octal or symbolic
`-samefile name`	Similar to -inum. Match files that share same inode number as file name
`-size n`	Match files of size n
`-type c`	Match files of type c
`-user name`	files/dirs belonging to user name. Username or user ID

Logical Operators #

Operator	Description
`-and`, `-a`	Match if tests on both sides of operator are true
`-or`, `-o`	Match if tests on either side of operator is true
`-not`, `!`	Match if test following the operator is false
`( )`	Group tests and operators together to form larger expressions.
	Since parentheses have special meaning to the shell, must be quoted/escaped

Actions #

Predefined #

Action	Description
`-delete`	Delete the currently matching file
`-ls`	Perform the equivalent of `ls -dils` on the matching file
`-print`	Output the full pathname of the matching file to stdout
`-quit`	Quit once a match has been made

User-defined #

-exec command {} ; -ok command {} ; Note: brace and semicolon have special meaning to the shell and must be quoted Note: the -ok action in place of -exec will prompt user before execution

find ~ -type f -name 'foo*' -ok ls -l '{}' ';'
< ls ... /home/me/bin/foo > ? y
-rwxr-xr-x 1 me  me 224 2007-10-29 18:44 /home/me/bin/foo
< ls ... /home/me/foo.txt > ? y
-rw-r--r-- 1 me  me   0 2016-09-19 12:53 /home/me/foo.txt

By changing the trailing ‘;’ to a ‘+’ execute the command on the whole list of arguments, instead of for each match

find ~ -type f -name 'foo*' -exec ls -l '{}' +
-rwxr-xr-x 1 me  me 224 2007-10-29 18:44 /home/me/bin/foo
-rw-r--r-- 1 me  me   0 2016-09-19 12:53 /home/me/foo.txt

Options #

Option	Description
`-depth`	Process files in dirs before dirs
`-maxdepth levels`	Set the max number of levels will descend into directory tree
`-mindepth levels`	Set the minimum number of levels will descent into a directory tree
`-mount`	Direct find not to traverse directories that are mounted on other file systems
`-noleaf`	Direct find not to optimize based on Unix-like file system