FIND(1L) FIND(1L)
NAME
find - search for files in a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
find [path...] [expression]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of find. find searches the directory tree
rooted at each given file name by evaluating the given expression from left to right,
according to the rules of precedence (see section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known
(the left hand side is false for and operations, true for or), at which point find moves
on to the next file name.
The first argument that begins with '-', '(', ')', ',', or '!' is taken to be the begin-
ning of the expression; any arguments before it are paths to search, and any arguments
after it are the rest of the expression. If no paths are given, the current directory is
used. If no expression is given, the expression '-print' is used.
find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, greater than 0 if errors
occur.
EXPRESSIONS
The expression is made up of options (which affect overall operation rather than the pro-
cessing of a specific file, and always return true), tests (which return a true or false
value), and actions (which have side effects and return a true or false value), all sepa-
rated by operators. -and is assumed where the operator is omitted. If the expression
contains no actions other than -prune, -print is performed on all files for which the
expression is true.
OPTIONS
All options always return true. They always take effect, rather than being processed only
when their place in the expression is reached. Therefore, for clarity, it is best to
place them at the beginning of the expression.
-daystart
Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and -mtime) from the begin-
ning of today rather than from 24 hours ago.
-depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself.
-follow
Dereference symbolic links. Implies -noleaf.
-help, --help
Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.
-maxdepth levels
Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of directories below the
command line arguments. '-maxdepth 0' means only apply the tests and actions to
the command line arguments.
-mindepth levels
Do not apply any tests or actions at levels less than levels (a non-negative inte-
ger). '-mindepth 1' means process all files except the command line arguments.
-mount Don't descend directories on other filesystems. An alternate name for -xdev, for
compatibility with some other versions of find.
-noleaf
Do not optimize by assuming that directories contain 2 fewer subdirectories than
their hard link count. This option is needed when searching filesystems that do
not follow the Unix directory-link convention, such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS filesystems
or AFS volume mount points. Each directory on a normal Unix filesystem has at
least 2 hard links: its name and its '.' entry. Additionally, its subdirectories
(if any) each have a '..' entry linked to that directory. When find is examining
a directory, after it has statted 2 fewer subdirectories than the directory's link
count, it knows that the rest of the entries in the directory are non-directories
('leaf' files in the directory tree). If only the files' names need to be exam-
ined, there is no need to stat them; this gives a significant increase in search
speed.
-version, --version
Print the find version number and exit.
-xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems.
TESTS
Numeric arguments can be specified as
+n for greater than n,
-n for less than n,
n for exactly n.
-amin n
File was last accessed n minutes ago.
-anewer file
File was last accessed more recently than file was modified. -anewer is affected
by -follow only if -follow comes before -anewer on the command line.
-atime n
File was last accessed n*24 hours ago.
-cmin n
File's status was last changed n minutes ago.
-cnewer file
File's status was last changed more recently than file was modified. -cnewer is
affected by -follow only if -follow comes before -cnewer on the command line.
-ctime n
File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago.
-empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.
-false Always false.
-fstype type
File is on a filesystem of type type. The valid filesystem types vary among dif-
ferent versions of Unix; an incomplete list of filesystem types that are accepted
on some version of Unix or another is: ufs, 4.2, 4.3, nfs, tmp, mfs, S51K, S52K.
You can use -printf with the %F directive to see the types of your filesystems.
-gid n File's numeric group ID is n.
-group gname
File belongs to group gname (numeric group ID allowed).
-ilname pattern
Like -lname, but the match is case insensitive.
-iname pattern
Like -name, but the match is case insensitive. For example, the patterns 'fo*' and
'F??' match the file names 'Foo', 'FOO', 'foo', 'fOo', etc.
-inum n
File has inode number n.
-ipath pattern
Like -path, but the match is case insensitive.
-iregex pattern
Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.
-links n
File has n links.
-lname pattern
File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pattern. The metachar-
acters do not treat '/' or '.' specially.
-mmin n
File's data was last modified n minutes ago.
-mtime n
File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago.
-name pattern
Base of file name (the path with the leading directories removed) matches shell
pattern pattern. The metacharacters ('*', '?', and '[]') do not match a '.' at the
start of the base name. To ignore a directory and the files under it, use -prune;
see an example in the description of -path.
-newer file
File was modified more recently than file. -newer is affected by -follow only if
-follow comes before -newer on the command line.
-nouser
No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.
-nogroup
No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.
-path pattern
File name matches shell pattern pattern. The metacharacters do not treat '/' or
'.' specially; so, for example,
find . -path './sr*sc'
will print an entry for a directory called './src/misc' (if one exists). To ignore
a whole directory tree, use -prune rather than checking every file in the tree.
For example, to skip the directory 'src/emacs' and all files and directories under
it, and print the names of the other files found, do something like this:
find . -path './src/emacs' -prune -o -print
-perm mode
File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic). Symbolic modes use
mode 0 as a point of departure.
-perm -mode
All of the permission bits mode are set for the file.
-perm +mode
Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file.
-regex pattern
File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match on the whole path,
not a search. For example, to match a file named './fubar3', you can use the regu-
lar expression '.*bar.' or '.*b.*3', but not 'b.*r3'.
-size n[cwbk]
File uses n units of space. The following suffixes can be used:
'b' for 512-byte blocks (this is the default if no suffix is used)
'c' for bytes
'w' for two-byte words
'k' for Kilobytes (units of 1024 bytes)
The size does not count indirect blocks, but it does count blocks in sparse files
that are not actually allocated. Bear in mind that the '%k' and '%b' format speci-
fiers of -printf handle sparse files differently. The 'b' suffix always denotes
512-byte blocks and never 1 Kilobyte blocks, which is different to the behaviour of
-ls.
-true Always true.
-type c
File is of type c:
b block (buffered) special
c character (unbuffered) special
d directory
p named pipe (FIFO)
f regular file
l symbolic link
s socket
D door (Solaris)
-uid n File's numeric user ID is n.
-used n
File was last accessed n days after its status was last changed.
-user uname
File is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).
-xtype c
The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link. For symbolic links: if -fol-
low has not been given, true if the file is a link to a file of type c; if -follow
has been given, true if c is 'l'. In other words, for symbolic links, -xtype
checks the type of the file that -type does not check.
-context scontext
--context scontext
(SELinux only) File has the security context scontext.
ACTIONS
-exec command ;
Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following arguments to find are
taken to be arguments to the command until an argument consisting of ';' is encoun-
tered. The string '{}' is replaced by the current file name being processed every-
where it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments where it is
alone, as in some versions of find. Both of these constructions might need to be
escaped (with a '\') or quoted to protect them from expansion by the shell. The
command is executed in the starting directory.
-fls file
True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint.
-fprint file
True; print the full file name into file file. If file does not exist when find is
run, it is created; if it does exist, it is truncated. The file names ''/dev/std-
out'' and ''/dev/stderr'' are handled specially; they refer to the standard output
and standard error output, respectively.
-fprint0 file
True; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint.
-fprintf file format
True; like -printf but write to file like -fprint.
-ok command ;
Like -exec but ask the user first (on the standard input); if the response does not
start with 'y' or 'Y', do not run the command, and return false.
-print True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a newline.
-print0
True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null charac-
ter. This allows file names that contain newlines to be correctly interpreted by
programs that process the find output.
-printf format
True; print format on the standard output, interpreting '\' escapes and '%' direc-
tives. Field widths and precisions can be specified as with the 'printf' C func-
tion. Unlike -print, -printf does not add a newline at the end of the string. The
escapes and directives are:
\a Alarm bell.
\b Backspace.
\c Stop printing from this format immediately and flush the output.
\f Form feed.
\n Newline.
\r Carriage return.
\t Horizontal tab.
\v Vertical tab.
\\ A literal backslash ('\').
\NNN The character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal).
A '\' character followed by any other character is treated as an ordinary charac-
ter, so they both are printed.
%% A literal percent sign.
%a File's last access time in the format returned by the C 'ctime' function.
%Ak File's last access time in the format specified by k, which is either '@' or
a directive for the C 'strftime' function. The possible values for k are
listed below; some of them might not be available on all systems, due to
differences in 'strftime' between systems.
@ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT.
Time fields:
H hour (00..23)
I hour (01..12)
k hour ( 0..23)
l hour ( 1..12)
M minute (00..59)
p locale's AM or PM
r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
S second (00..61)
T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
X locale's time representation (H:M:S)
Z time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable
Date fields:
a locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
A locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)
b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
B locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)
c locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989)
d day of month (01..31)
D date (mm/dd/yy)
h same as b
j day of year (001..366)
m month (01..12)
U week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
w day of week (0..6)
W week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
x locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
y last two digits of year (00..99)
Y year (1970...)
%b File's size in 512-byte blocks (rounded up).
%c File's last status change time in the format returned by the C 'ctime' func-
tion.
%Ck File's last status change time in the format specified by k, which is the
same as for %A.
%d File's depth in the directory tree; 0 means the file is a command line argu-
ment.
%f File's name with any leading directories removed (only the last element).
%F Type of the filesystem the file is on; this value can be used for -fstype.
%g File's group name, or numeric group ID if the group has no name.
%G File's numeric group ID.
%h Leading directories of file's name (all but the last element).
%H Command line argument under which file was found.
%i File's inode number (in decimal).
%k File's size in 1K blocks (rounded up).
%l Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a symbolic link).
%m File's permission bits (in octal).
%n Number of hard links to file.
%p File's name.
%P File's name with the name of the command line argument under which it was
found removed.
%s File's size in bytes.
%t File's last modification time in the format returned by the C 'ctime' func-
tion.
%Tk File's last modification time in the format specified by k, which is the
same as for %A.
%u File's user name, or numeric user ID if the user has no name.
%U File's numeric user ID.
%Z (SELinux only) file's security context.
A '%' character followed by any other character is discarded (but the other charac-
ter is printed).
-prune If -depth is not given, true; do not descend the current directory.
If -depth is given, false; no effect.
-ls True; list current file in 'ls -dils' format on standard output. The block counts
are of 1K blocks, unless the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, in which
case 512-byte blocks are used.
OPERATORS
Listed in order of decreasing precedence:
( expr )
Force precedence.
! expr True if expr is false.
-not expr
Same as ! expr.
expr1 expr2
And (implied); expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is false.
expr1 -a expr2
Same as expr1 expr2.
expr1 -and expr2
Same as expr1 expr2.
expr1 -o expr2
Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
expr1 -or expr2
Same as expr1 -o expr2.
expr1 , expr2
List; both expr1 and expr2 are always evaluated. The value of expr1 is discarded;
the value of the list is the value of expr2.
SEE ALSO
locate(1L), locatedb(5L), updatedb(1L), xargs(1L) Finding Files (on-line in Info, or
printed)
FIND(1L)
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