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FIND(1) General Commands Manual FIND(1)
NAME
find - search for files in a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [path...] [expression]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of find. GNU 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.
If you are using find in an environment where security is important (for example if you
are using it to search directories that are writable by other users), you should read the
"Security Considerations" chapter of the findutils documentation, which is called Finding
Files and comes with findutils. That document also includes a lot more detail and dis-
cussion than this manual page, so you may find it a more useful source of information.
OPTIONS
The -H, -L and -P options control the treatment of symbolic links. Command-line arguments
following these are taken to be names of files or directories to be examined, up to the
first argument that begins with `-', or the argument `(' or `!'. That argument and any
following arguments are taken to be the expression describing what is to be searched for.
If no paths are given, the current directory is used. If no expression is given, the
expression -print is used (but you should probably consider using -print0 instead, any-
way).
This manual page talks about `options' within the expression list. These options control
the behaviour of find but are specified immediately after the last path name. The five
`real' options -H, -L, -P, -D and -O must appear before the first path name, if at all. A
double dash -- can also be used to signal that any remaining arguments are not options
(though ensuring that all start points begin with either `./' or `/' is generally safer if
you use wildcards in the list of start points).
-P Never follow symbolic links. This is the default behaviour. When find examines or
prints information a file, and the file is a symbolic link, the information used
shall be taken from the properties of the symbolic link itself.
-L Follow symbolic links. When find examines or prints information about files, the
information used shall be taken from the properties of the file to which the link
points, not from the link itself (unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is
unable to examine the file to which the link points). Use of this option implies
-noleaf. If you later use the -P option, -noleaf will still be in effect. If -L
is in effect and find discovers a symbolic link to a subdirectory during its
search, the subdirectory pointed to by the symbolic link will be searched.
When the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always match against the
type of the file that a symbolic link points to rather than the link itself (unless
the symbolic link is broken). Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname predicates
always to return false.
-H Do not follow symbolic links, except while processing the command line arguments.
When find examines or prints information about files, the information used shall be
taken from the properties of the symbolic link itself. The only exception to this
behaviour is when a file specified on the command line is a symbolic link, and the
link can be resolved. For that situation, the information used is taken from what-
ever the link points to (that is, the link is followed). The information about the
link itself is used as a fallback if the file pointed to by the symbolic link can-
not be examined. If -H is in effect and one of the paths specified on the command
line is a symbolic link to a directory, the contents of that directory will be
examined (though of course -maxdepth 0 would prevent this).
If more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each overrides the others; the last one
appearing on the command line takes effect. Since it is the default, the -P option should
be considered to be in effect unless either -H or -L is specified.
GNU find frequently stats files during the processing of the command line itself, before
any searching has begun. These options also affect how those arguments are processed.
Specifically, there are a number of tests that compare files listed on the command line
against a file we are currently considering. In each case, the file specified on the com-
mand line will have been examined and some of its properties will have been saved. If the
named file is in fact a symbolic link, and the -P option is in effect (or if neither -H
nor -L were specified), the information used for the comparison will be taken from the
properties of the symbolic link. Otherwise, it will be taken from the properties of the
file the link points to. If find cannot follow the link (for example because it has
insufficient privileges or the link points to a nonexistent file) the properties of the
link itself will be used.
When the -H or -L options are in effect, any symbolic links listed as the argument of
-newer will be dereferenced, and the timestamp will be taken from the file to which the
symbolic link points. The same consideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer.
The -follow option has a similar effect to -L, though it takes effect at the point where
it appears (that is, if -L is not used but -follow is, any symbolic links appearing after
-follow on the command line will be dereferenced, and those before it will not).
-D debugoptions
Print diagnostic information; this can be helpful to diagnose problems with why
find is not doing what you want. The list of debug options should be comma sepa-
rated. Compatibility of the debug options is not guaranteed between releases of
findutils. For a complete list of valid debug options, see the output of find -D
help. Valid debug options include
help Explain the debugging options
tree Show the expression tree in its original and optimised form.
stat Print messages as files are examined with the stat and lstat system calls.
The find program tries to minimise such calls.
opt Prints diagnostic information relating to the optimisation of the expression
tree; see the -O option.
rates Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate succeeded or failed.
-Olevel
Enables query optimisation. The find program reorders tests to speed up execution
while preserving the overall effect; that is, predicates with side effects are not
reordered relative to each other. The optimisations performed at each optimisation
level are as follows.
0 Equivalent to optimisation level 1.
1 This is the default optimisation level and corresponds to the traditional
behaviour. Expressions are reordered so that tests based only on the names
of files (for example -name and -regex) are performed first.
2 Any -type or -xtype tests are performed after any tests based only on the
names of files, but before any tests that require information from the
inode. On many modern versions of Unix, file types are returned by read-
dir() and so these predicates are faster to evaluate than predicates which
need to stat the file first. If you use the -fstype FOO predicate and spec-
ify a filsystem type FOO which is not known (that is, present in
`/etc/mtab') at the time find starts, that predicate is equivalent to
-false.
3 At this optimisation level, the full cost-based query optimiser is enabled.
The order of tests is modified so that cheap (i.e. fast) tests are performed
first and more expensive ones are performed later, if necessary. Within
each cost band, predicates are evaluated earlier or later according to
whether they are likely to succeed or not. For -o, predicates which are
likely to succeed are evaluated earlier, and for -a, predicates which are
likely to fail are evaluated earlier.
The cost-based optimiser has a fixed idea of how likely any given test is to suc-
ceed. In some cases the probability takes account of the specific nature of the
test (for example, -type f is assumed to be more likely to succeed than -type c).
The cost-based optimiser is currently being evaluated. If it does not actually
improve the performance of find, it will be removed again. Conversely, optimisa-
tions that prove to be reliable, robust and effective may be enabled at lower opti-
misation levels over time. However, the default behaviour (i.e. optimisation level
1) will not be changed in the 4.3.x release series. The findutils test suite runs
all the tests on find at each optimisation level and ensures that the result is the
same.
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. Except for -daystart, -follow and -regextype, the options
affect all tests, including tests specified before the option. This is because the
options are processed when the command line is parsed, while the tests don't do anything
until files are examined. The -daystart, -follow and -regextype options are different in
this respect, and have an effect only on tests which appear later in the command line.
Therefore, for clarity, it is best to place them at the beginning of the expression. A
warning is issued if you don't do this.
-d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD, MacOS X and OpenBSD.
-daystart
Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and -mtime) from the begin-
ning of today rather than from 24 hours ago. This option only affects tests which
appear later on the command line.
-depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself. The -delete action
also implies -depth.
-follow
Deprecated; use the -L option instead. Dereference symbolic links. Implies
-noleaf. The -follow option affects only those tests which appear after it on the
command line. Unless the -H or -L option has been specified, the position of the
-follow option changes the behaviour of the -newer predicate; any files listed as
the argument of -newer will be dereferenced if they are symbolic links. The same
consideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer. Similarly, the -type pred-
icate will always match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points to
rather than the link itself. Using -follow causes the -lname and -ilname predi-
cates always to return false.
-help, --help
Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.
-ignore_readdir_race
Normally, find will emit an error message when it fails to stat a file. If you
give this option and a file is deleted between the time find reads the name of the
file from the directory and the time it tries to stat the file, no error message
will be issued. This also applies to files or directories whose names are given
on the command line. This option takes effect at the time the command line is
read, which means that you cannot search one part of the filesystem with this
option on and part of it with this option off (if you need to do that, you will
need to issue two find commands instead, one with the option and one without it).
-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.
-noignore_readdir_race
Turns off the effect of -ignore_readdir_race.
-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.
-regextype type
Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and -iregex tests which
occur later on the command line. Currently-implemented types are emacs (this is
the default), posix-awk, posix-basic, posix-egrep and posix-extended.
-version, --version
Print the find version number and exit.
-warn, -nowarn
Turn warning messages on or off. These warnings apply only to the command line
usage, not to any conditions that find might encounter when it searches directo-
ries. The default behaviour corresponds to -warn if standard input is a tty, and
to -nowarn otherwise.
-xautofs
Don't descend directories on autofs filesystems.
-xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems.
TESTS
Some tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison between the file cur-
rently being examined and some reference file specified on the command line. When these
tests are used, the interpretation of the reference file is determined by the options -H,
-L and -P and any previous -follow, but the reference file is only examined once, at the
time the command line is parsed. If the reference file cannot be examined (for example,
the stat(2) system call fails for it), an error message is issued, and find exits with a
nonzero status.
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. If file is a symbolic
link and the -H option or the -L option is in effect, the access time of the file
it points to is always used.
-atime n
File was last accessed n*24 hours ago. When find figures out how many 24-hour
periods ago the file was last accessed, any fractional part is ignored, so to match
-atime +1, a file has to have been accessed at least two days 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. If file is a
symbolic link and the -H option or the -L option is in effect, the status-change
time of the file it points to is always used.
-ctime n
File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago. See the comments for -atime to
understand how rounding affects the interpretation of file status change times.
-empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.
-executable
Matches files which are executable and directories which are searchable (in a file
name resolution sense). This takes into account access control lists and other
permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the
access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping (or
root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client's kernel and
so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server. Because this
test is based only on the result of the access(2) system call, there is no guaran-
tee that a file for which this test succeeds can actually be executed.
-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. If the -L option or the -follow
option is in effect, this test returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.
-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. The pattern `*foo*`
will also match a file called '.foobar'.
-inum n
File has inode number n. It is normally easier to use the -samefile test instead.
-ipath pattern
Like -path. but the match is case insensitive.
-iregex pattern
Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.
-iwholename pattern
See -ipath. This alternative is less portable than -ipath.
-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. If the -L option or the -follow option
is in effect, this test returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.
-mmin n
File's data was last modified n minutes ago.
-mtime n
File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago. See the comments for -atime to
understand how rounding affects the interpretation of file modification times.
-name pattern
Base of file name (the path with the leading directories removed) matches shell
pattern pattern. Because the leading directories are removed, the file names con-
sidered for a match with -name will never include a slash, so `-name a/b' will
never match anything (you probably need to use -path instead). The metacharacters
(`*', `?', and `[]') match a `.' at the start of the base name (this is a change in
findutils-4.2.2; see section STANDARDS CONFORMANCE below). To ignore a directory
and the files under it, use -prune; see an example in the description of -path.
Braces are not recognised as being special, despite the fact that some shells
including Bash imbue braces with a special meaning in shell patterns. The filename
matching is performed with the use of the fnmatch(3) library function. Don't for-
get to enclose the pattern in quotes in order to protect it from expansion by the
shell.
-newer file
File was modified more recently than file. If file is a symbolic link and the -H
option or the -L option is in effect, the modification time of the file it points
to is always used.
-newerXY reference
Compares the timestamp of the current file with reference. The reference argument
is normally the name of a file (and one of its timestamps is used for the compari-
son) but it may also be a string describing an absolute time. X and Y are place-
holders for other letters, and these letters select which time belonging to how
reference is used for the comparison.
a The access time of the file reference
B The birth time of the file reference
c The inode status change time of reference
m The modification time of the file reference
t reference is interpreted directly as a time
Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for X to be t. Some com-
binations are not implemented on all systems; for example B is not supported on all
systems. If an invalid or unsupported combination of XY is specified, a fatal
error results. Time specifications are interpreted as for the argument to the -d
option of GNU date. If you try to use the birth time of a reference file, and the
birth time cannot be determined, a fatal error message results. If you specify a
test which refers to the birth time of files being examined, this test will fail
for any files where the birth time is unknown.
-nogroup
No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.
-nouser
No user corresponds to file's numeric user 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
Note that the pattern match test applies to the whole file name, starting from one
of the start points named on the command line. It would only make sense to use an
absolute path name here if the relevant start point is also an absolute path. This
means that this command will never match anything:
find bar -path /foo/bar/myfile -print
Find compares the -path argument with the concatenation of a directory name and the
base name of the file it's examining. Since the concatenation will never end with
a slash, -path arguments ending in a slash will match nothing (except perhaps a
start point specified on the command line). The predicate -path is also supported
by HP-UX find and will be in a forthcoming version of the POSIX standard.
-perm mode
File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic). Since an exact match
is required, if you want to use this form for symbolic modes, you may have to spec-
ify a rather complex mode string. For example `-perm g=w' will only match files
which have mode 0020 (that is, ones for which group write permission is the only
permission set). It is more likely that you will want to use the `/' or `-' forms,
for example `-perm -g=w', which matches any file with group write permission. See
the EXAMPLES section for some illustrative examples.
-perm -mode
All of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic modes are accepted
in this form, and this is usually the way in which would want to use them. You
must specify `u', `g' or `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section
for some illustrative examples.
-perm /mode
Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic modes are accepted
in this form. You must specify `u', `g' or `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See
the EXAMPLES section for some illustrative examples. If no permission bits in mode
are set, this test matches any file (the idea here is to be consistent with the be-
haviour of -perm -000).
-perm +mode
Deprecated, old way of searching for files with any of the permission bits in mode
set. You should use -perm /mode instead. Trying to use the `+' syntax with sym-
bolic modes will yield surprising results. For example, `+u+x' is a valid symbolic
mode (equivalent to +u,+x, i.e. 0111) and will therefore not be evaluated as -perm
+mode but instead as the exact mode specifier -perm mode and so it matches files
with exact permissions 0111 instead of files with any execute bit set. If you
found this paragraph confusing, you're not alone - just use -perm /mode. This form
of the -perm test is deprecated because the POSIX specification requires the inter-
pretation of a leading `+' as being part of a symbolic mode, and so we switched to
using `/' instead.
-readable
Matches files which are readable. This takes into account access control lists and
other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of
the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping
(or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client's kernel
and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server.
-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 `f.*r3'. The regular expressions
understood by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but this can be
changed with the -regextype option.
-samefile name
File refers to the same inode as name. When -L is in effect, this can include
symbolic links.
-size n[cwbkMG]
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)
`M' for Megabytes (units of 1048576 bytes)
`G' for Gigabytes (units of 1073741824 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; this is never true if the -L option or the -follow option is
in effect, unless the symbolic link is broken. If you want to search for
symbolic links when -L is in effect, use -xtype.
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).
-wholename pattern
See -path. This alternative is less portable than -path.
-writable
Matches files which are writable. This takes into account access control lists and
other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of
the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping
(or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client's kernel
and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server.
-xtype c
The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link. For symbolic links: if the
-H or -P option was specified, true if the file is a link to a file of type c; if
the -L option 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 pattern
(SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pattern.
ACTIONS
-delete
Delete files; true if removal succeeded. If the removal failed, an error message
is issued. If -delete fails, find's exit status will be nonzero (when it eventu-
ally exits). Use of -delete automatically turns on the `-depth' option.
Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated as an expression, so
putting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting
points you specified. When testing a find command line that you later intend to
use with -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid later sur-
prises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete
together.
-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. See
the EXAMPLES section for examples of the use of the -exec option. The specified
command is run once for each matched file. The command is executed in the starting
directory. There are unavoidable security problems surrounding use of the -exec
action; you should use the -execdir option instead.
-exec command {} +
This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected files,
but the command line is built by appending each selected file name at the end; the
total number of invocations of the command will be much less than the number of
matched files. The command line is built in much the same way that xargs builds
its command lines. Only one instance of `{}' is allowed within the command. The
command is executed in the starting directory.
-execdir command ;
-execdir command {} +
Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the subdirectory containing the
matched file, which is not normally the directory in which you started find. This
a much more secure method for invoking commands, as it avoids race conditions dur-
ing resolution of the paths to the matched files. As with the -exec action, the
`+' form of -execdir will build a command line to process more than one matched
file, but any given invocation of command will only list files that exist in the
same subdirectory. If you use this option, you must ensure that your $PATH envi-
ronment variable does not reference `.'; otherwise, an attacker can run any com-
mands they like by leaving an appropriately-named file in a directory in which you
will run -execdir. The same applies to having entries in $PATH which are empty or
which are not absolute directory names.
-fls file
True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created,
even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for
information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-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. The output file is always created, even if
the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information
about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprint0 file
True; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always cre-
ated, even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section
for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprintf file format
True; like -printf but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always cre-
ated, even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section
for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-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. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information
about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-ok command ;
Like -exec but ask the user first. If the user agrees, run the command. Otherwise
just return false. If the command is run, its standard input is redirected from
/dev/null.
The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular expressions to
determine if it is an affirmative or negative response. This regular expression is
obtained from the system if the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, or
otherwise from find's message translations. If the system has no suitable defini-
tion, find's own definition will be used. In either case, the interpretation of
the regular expression itself will be affected by the environment variables
'LC_CTYPE' (character classes) and 'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equivalence
classes).
-okdir command ;
Like -execdir but ask the user first in the same way as for -ok. If the user does
not agree, just return false. If the command is run, its standard input is redi-
rected from /dev/null.
-print True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a newline. If
you are piping the output of find into another program and there is the faintest
possibility that the files which you are searching for might contain a newline,
then you should seriously consider using the -print0 option instead of -print. See
the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in file-
names are handled.
-print0
True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character
(instead of the newline character that -print uses). This allows file names that
contain newlines or other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by pro-
grams that process the find output. This option corresponds to the -0 option of
xargs.
-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. Please note that many of the fields are printed as %s rather than %d, and
this may mean that flags don't work as you might expect. This also means that the
`-' flag does work (it forces fields to be left-aligned). 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.
\0 ASCII NUL.
\\ 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, with fractional part.
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 (00.00 .. 61.00). There is a fractional part.
T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
+ Date and time, separated by `+', for example `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'.
This is a GNU extension. The time is given in the current timezone
(which may be affected by setting the TZ environment variable). The
seconds field includes a fractional part.
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). The format is
the same as for ctime(3) and so to preserve compatibility with that
format, there is no fractional part in the seconds field.
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 The amount of disk space used for this file in 512-byte blocks. Since disk
space is allocated in multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually
greater than %s/512, but it can also be smaller if the file is a sparse
file.
%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.
%D The device number on which the file exists (the st_dev field of struct
stat), in decimal.
%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). If the file
name contains no slashes (since it is in the current directory) the %h spec-
ifier expands to ".".
%H Command line argument under which file was found.
%i File's inode number (in decimal).
%k The amount of disk space used for this file in 1K blocks. Since disk space
is allocated in multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually
greater than %s/1024, but it can also be smaller if the file is a sparse
file.
%l Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a symbolic link).
%m File's permission bits (in octal). This option uses the `traditional' num-
bers which most Unix implementations use, but if your particular implementa-
tion uses an unusual ordering of octal permissions bits, you will see a dif-
ference between the actual value of the file's mode and the output of %m.
Normally you will want to have a leading zero on this number, and to do
this, you should use the # flag (as in, for example, `%#m').
%M File's permissions (in symbolic form, as for ls). This directive is sup-
ported in findutils 4.2.5 and later.
%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.
%S File's sparseness. This is calculated as (BLOCKSIZE*st_blocks / st_size).
The exact value you will get for an ordinary file of a certain length is
system-dependent. However, normally sparse files will have values less than
1.0, and files which use indirect blocks may have a value which is greater
than 1.0. The value used for BLOCKSIZE is system-dependent, but is usually
512 bytes. If the file size is zero, the value printed is undefined. On
systems which lack support for st_blocks, a file's sparseness is assumed to
be 1.0.
%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.
%y File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't happen)
%Y File's type (like %y), plus follow symlinks: L=loop, N=nonexistent
%Z (SELinux only) file's security context.
%{ %[ %(
Reserved for future use.
A `%' character followed by any other character is discarded, but the other charac-
ter is printed (don't rely on this, as further format characters may be intro-
duced). A `%' at the end of the format argument causes undefined behaviour since
there is no following character. In some locales, it may hide your door keys,
while in others it may remove the final page from the novel you are reading.
The %m and %d directives support the # , 0 and + flags, but the other directives do
not, even if they print numbers. Numeric directives that do not support these
flags include G, U, b, D, k and n. The `-' format flag is supported and changes
the alignment of a field from right-justified (which is the default) to left-justi-
fied.
See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in
filenames are handled.
-prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it. If -depth is given,
false; no effect. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune
and -delete together.
-quit Exit immediately. No child processes will be left running, but no more paths spec-
ified on the command line will be processed. For example, find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar
-print -quit will print only /tmp/foo. Any command lines which have been built up
with -execdir ... {} + will be invoked before find exits. The exit status may or
may not be zero, depending on whether an error has already occurred.
UNUSUAL FILENAMES
Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is under the control of
other users. This includes file names, sizes, modification times and so forth. File
names are a potential problem since they can contain any character except `\0' and `/'.
Unusual characters in file names can do unexpected and often undesirable things to your
terminal (for example, changing the settings of your function keys on some terminals).
Unusual characters are handled differently by various actions, as described below.
-print0, -fprint0
Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output is going to a termi-
nal.
-ls, -fls
Unusual characters are always escaped. White space, backslash, and double quote
characters are printed using C-style escaping (for example `\f', `\"'). Other
unusual characters are printed using an octal escape. Other printable characters
(for -ls and -fls these are the characters between octal 041 and 0176) are printed
as-is.
-printf, -fprintf
If the output is not going to a terminal, it is printed as-is. Otherwise, the
result depends on which directive is in use. The directives %D, %F, %g, %G, %H,
%Y, and %y expand to values which are not under control of files' owners, and so
are printed as-is. The directives %a, %b, %c, %d, %i, %k, %m, %M, %n, %s, %t, %u
and %U have values which are under the control of files' owners but which cannot be
used to send arbitrary data to the terminal, and so these are printed as-is. The
directives %f, %h, %l, %p and %P are quoted. This quoting is performed in the same
way as for GNU ls. This is not the same quoting mechanism as the one used for -ls
and -fls. If you are able to decide what format to use for the output of find then
it is normally better to use `\0' as a terminator than to use newline, as file
names can contain white space and newline characters. The setting of the
`LC_CTYPE' environment variable is used to determine which characters need to be
quoted.
-print, -fprint
Quoting is handled in the same way as for -printf and -fprintf. If you are using
find in a script or in a situation where the matched files might have arbitrary
names, you should consider using -print0 instead of -print.
The -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is. This may change in a future
release.
OPERATORS
Listed in order of decreasing precedence:
( expr )
Force precedence. Since parentheses are special to the shell, you will normally
need to quote them. Many of the examples in this manual page use backslashes for
this purpose: `\(...\)' instead of `(...)'.
! expr True if expr is false. This character will also usually need protection from
interpretation by the shell.
-not expr
Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 expr2
Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied "and"; expr2 is not
evaluated if expr1 is false.
expr1 -a expr2
Same as expr1 expr2.
expr1 -and expr2
Same as expr1 expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 -o expr2
Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
expr1 -or expr2
Same as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
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. The comma operator can be useful for
searching for several different types of thing, but traversing the filesystem hier-
archy only once. The -fprintf action can be used to list the various matched items
into several different output files.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the POSIXLY_CORRECT environ-
ment variable. The following options are specified in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std
1003.1, 2003 Edition):
-H This option is supported.
-L This option is supported.
-name This option is supported, but POSIX conformance depends on the POSIX conformance of
the system's fnmatch(3) library function. As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharac-
ters (`*', `?' or `[]' for example) will match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC
interpretation 126 requires this. This is a change from previous versions of
findutils.
-type Supported. POSIX specifies `b', `c', `d', `l', `p', `f' and `s'. GNU find also
supports `D', representing a Door, where the OS provides these.
-ok Supported. Interpretation of the response is according to the "yes" and "no" pat-
terns selected by setting the `LC_MESSAGES' environment variable. When the
`POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, these patterns are taken system's
definition of a positive (yes) or negative (no) response. See the system's documen-
tation for nl_langinfo(3), in particular YESEXPR and NOEXPR. When `POSIXLY_COR-
RECT' is not set, the patterns are instead taken from find's own message catalogue.
-newer Supported. If the file specified is a symbolic link, it is always dereferenced.
This is a change from previous behaviour, which used to take the relevant time from
the symbolic link; see the HISTORY section below.
-perm Supported. If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not set, some mode argu-
ments (for example +a+x) which are not valid in POSIX are supported for backward-
compatibility.
Other predicates
The predicates -atime, -ctime, -depth, -group, -links, -mtime, -nogroup, -nouser,
-print, -prune, -size, -user and -xdev `-atime', `-ctime', `-depth', `-group',
`-links', `-mtime', `-nogroup', `-nouser', `-perm', `-print', `-prune', `-size',
`-user' and `-xdev', are all supported.
The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the `and' and `or'
operators ( -a, -o).
All other options, predicates, expressions and so forth are extensions beyond the POSIX
standard. Many of these extensions are not unique to GNU find, however.
The POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:
The find utility shall detect infinite loops; that is, entering a previously vis-
ited directory that is an ancestor of the last file encountered. When it detects an
infinite loop, find shall write a diagnostic message to standard error and shall
either recover its position in the hierarchy or terminate.
GNU find complies with these requirements. The link count of directories which contain
entries which are hard links to an ancestor will often be lower than they otherwise should
be. This can mean that GNU find will sometimes optimise away the visiting of a subdirec-
tory which is actually a link to an ancestor. Since find does not actually enter such a
subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic message. Although this behav-
iour may be somewhat confusing, it is unlikely that anybody actually depends on this be-
haviour. If the leaf optimisation has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry
will always be examined and the diagnostic message will be issued where it is appropriate.
Symbolic links cannot be used to create filesystem cycles as such, but if the -L option or
the -follow option is in use, a diagnostic message is issued when find encounters a loop
of symbolic links. As with loops containing hard links, the leaf optimisation will often
mean that find knows that it doesn't need to call stat() or chdir() on the symbolic link,
so this diagnostic is frequently not necessary.
The -d option is supported for compatibility with various BSD systems, but you should use
the POSIX-compliant option -depth instead.
The POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable does not affect the behaviour of the -regex or
-iregex tests because those tests aren't specified in the POSIX standard.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
LANG Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
null.
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other interna-
tionalization variables.
LC_COLLATE
The POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pattern matching to be
used for the -name option. GNU find uses the fnmatch(3) library function, and so
support for `LC_COLLATE' depends on the system library. This variable also
affects the interpretation of the response to -ok; while the `LC_MESSAGES' variable
selects the actual pattern used to interpret the response to -ok, the interpreta-
tion of any bracket expressions in the pattern will be affected by `LC_COLLATE'.
LC_CTYPE
This variable affects the treatment of character classes used in regular expres-
sions and also with the -name test, if the system's fnmatch(3) library function
supports this. This variable also affects the interpretation of any character
classes in the regular expressions used to interpret the response to the prompt
issued by -ok. The `LC_CTYPE' environment variable will also affect which charac-
ters are considered to be unprintable when filenames are printed; see the section
UNUSUAL FILENAMES.
LC_MESSAGES
Determines the locale to be used for internationalised messages. If the
`POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, this also determines the interpreta-
tion of the response to the prompt made by the -ok action.
NLSPATH
Determines the location of the internationalisation message catalogues.
PATH Affects the directories which are searched to find the executables invoked by
-exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir.
POSIXLY_CORRECT
Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls. If POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, blocks
are units of 512 bytes. Otherwise they are units of 1024 bytes.
Setting this variable also turns off warning messages (that is, implies -nowarn) by
default, because POSIX requires that apart from the output for -ok, all messages
printed on stderr are diagnostics and must result in a non-zero exit status.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just like -perm /zzz if +zzz
is not a valid symbolic mode. When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, such constructs are
treated as an error.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made by the -ok action is
interpreted according to the system's message catalogue, as opposed to according to
find's own message translations.
TZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format directives of
-printf and -fprintf.
BINARIES
The findutils source distribution contains two different implementations of find. The
older implementation descends the file system recursively, while the newer one uses
fts(3). Both are normally installed.
If the option --without-fts was passed to configure, the recursive implementation is
installed as find and the fts-based implementation is installed as ftsfind. Otherwise,
the fts-based implementation is installed as find and the recursive implementation is
installed as oldfind.
EXAMPLES
find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them. Note that this will
work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines, single or double quotes,
or spaces.
find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing filenames
in such a way that file or directory names containing single or double quotes, spaces or
newlines are correctly handled. The -name test comes before the -type test in order to
avoid having to call stat(2) on every file.
find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;
Runs `file' on every file in or below the current directory. Notice that the braces are
enclosed in single quote marks to protect them from interpretation as shell script punctu-
ation. The semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash, though single
quotes could have been used in that case also.
find / \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \
\( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)
Traverse the filesystem just once, listing setuid files and directories into
/root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.
find $HOME -mtime 0
Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-four
hours. This command works this way because the time since each file was last modified is
divided by 24 hours and any remainder is discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0, a
file will have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.
find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
Search for files which are executable but not readable.
find . -perm 664
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner, and group, but
which other users can read but not write to. Files which meet these criteria but have
other permissions bits set (for example if someone can execute the file) will not be
matched.
find . -perm -664
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner and group, and which
other users can read, without regard to the presence of any extra permission bits (for
example the executable bit). This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
find . -perm /222
Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their group, or anybody
else).
find . -perm /220
find . -perm /u+w,g+w
find . -perm /u=w,g=w
All three of these commands do the same thing, but the first one uses the octal represen-
tation of the file mode, and the other two use the symbolic form. These commands all
search for files which are writable by either their owner or their group. The files don't
have to be writable by both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.
find . -perm -220
find . -perm -g+w,u+w
Both these commands do the same thing; search for files which are writable by both their
owner and their group.
find . -perm -444 -perm /222 ! -perm /111
find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w ! -perm /a+x
These two commands both search for files that are readable for everybody ( -perm -444 or
-perm -a+r), have at least one write bit set ( -perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not exe-
cutable for anybody ( ! -perm /111 and ! -perm /a+x respectively).
cd /source-dir
find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name *~ -print0 \)|
cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir
This command copies the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omits files and directo-
ries named .snapshot (and anything in them). It also omits files or directories whose
name ends in ~, but not their contents. The construct -prune -o \( ... -print0 \) is
quite common. The idea here is that the expression before -prune matches things which are
to be pruned. However, the -prune action itself returns true, so the following -o ensures
that the right hand side is evaluated only for those directories which didn't get pruned
(the contents of the pruned directories are not even visited, so their contents are irrel-
evant). The expression on the right hand side of the -o is in parentheses only for clar-
ity. It emphasises that the -print0 action takes place only for things that didn't have
-prune applied to them. Because the default `and' condition between tests binds more
tightly than -o, this is the default anyway, but the parentheses help to show what is
going on.
find repo/ -exec test -d {}/.svn \; -or \
-exec test -d {}/.git \; -or -exec test -d {}/CVS \; \
-print -prune
Given the following directory of projects and their associated SCM administrative directo-
ries, perform an efficient search for the projects' roots:
repo/project1/CVS
repo/gnu/project2/.svn
repo/gnu/project3/.svn
repo/gnu/project3/src/.svn
repo/project4/.git
In this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into directories that have already
been discovered (for example we do not search project3/src because we already found
project3/.svn), but ensures sibling directories (project2 and project3) are found.
EXIT STATUS
find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, greater than 0 if errors
occur. This is deliberately a very broad description, but if the return value is non-
zero, you should not rely on the correctness of the results of find.
SEE ALSO
locate(1), locatedb(5), updatedb(1), xargs(1), chmod(1), fnmatch(3), regex(7), stat(2),
lstat(2), ls(1), printf(3), strftime(3), ctime(3), Finding Files (on-line in Info, or
printed).
HISTORY
As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for example) used in file-
name patterns will match a leading `.', because IEEE POSIX interpretation 126 requires
this.
As of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of none.
Nanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.
As of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to a nonzero value when
it fails. However, find will not exit immediately. Previously, find's exit status was
unaffected by the failure of -delete.
Feature Added in Also occurs in
-newerXY 4.3.3 BSD
-D 4.3.1
-O 4.3.1
-readable 4.3.0
-writable 4.3.0
-executable 4.3.0
-regextype 4.2.24
-exec ... + 4.2.12 POSIX
-execdir 4.2.12 BSD
-okdir 4.2.12
-samefile 4.2.11
-H 4.2.5 POSIX
-L 4.2.5 POSIX
-P 4.2.5 BSD
-delete 4.2.3
-quit 4.2.3
-d 4.2.3 BSD
-wholename 4.2.0
-iwholename 4.2.0
-ignore_readdir_race 4.2.0
-fls 4.0
-ilname 3.8
-iname 3.8
-ipath 3.8
-iregex 3.8
The syntax -perm +MODE does not work as expected in findutils-4.5.11 and it was removed in
findutils-4.5.12, in favour of -perm /MODE. The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since
findutils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.
NON-BUGS
$ find . -name *.c -print
find: paths must precede expression
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]
This happens because *.c has been expanded by the shell resulting in find actually receiv-
ing a command line like this:
find . -name bigram.c code.c frcode.c locate.c -print
That command is of course not going to work. Instead of doing things this way, you should
enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the wildcard:
$ find . -name '*.c' -print
$ find . -name \*.c -print
BUGS
There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX standard specifies
for find, which therefore cannot be fixed. For example, the -exec action is inherently
insecure, and -execdir should be used instead. Please see Finding Files for more informa-
tion.
The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
The best way to report a bug is to use the form at http://savan-
nah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils. The reason for this is that you will then be able to
track progress in fixing the problem. Other comments about find(1) and about the findu-
tils package in general can be sent to the bug-findutils mailing list. To join the list,
send email to bug-findutils-request AT gnu.org.
FIND(1)
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