FIND(1) General Commands Manual FIND(1)
NAME
find - search for files in a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...] [ex-
pression]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of find. GNU find searches
the directory tree rooted at each given starting-point by evaluating the
given expression from left to right, according to the rules of prece-
dence (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 no starting-point is specified, `.'
is assumed.
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. Com-
mand-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 argu-
ments 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 ex-
pression is given, the expression -print is used (but you should proba-
bly consider using -print0 instead, anyway).
This manual page talks about `options' within the expression list.
These options control the behaviour of find but are specified immedi-
ately 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
-- could theoretically be used to signal that any remaining arguments
are not options, but this does not really work due to the way find de-
termines the end of the following path arguments: it does that by read-
ing until an expression argument comes (which also starts with a `-').
Now, if a path argument would start with a `-', then find would treat it
as expression argument instead. Thus, to ensure that all start points
are taken as such, and especially to prevent that wildcard patterns ex-
panded by the calling shell are not mistakenly treated as expression ar-
guments, it is generally safer to prefix wildcards or dubious path names
with either `./' or to use absolute path names starting with '/'. Al-
ternatively, it is generally safe though non-portable to use the GNU op-
tion -files0-from to pass arbitrary starting points to find.
-P Never follow symbolic links. This is the default behaviour.
When find examines or prints information about files, 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 proper-
ties of the file to which the link points, not from the link it-
self (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 sym-
bolic 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).
Actions that can cause symbolic links to become broken while find
is executing (for example -delete) can give rise to confusing be-
haviour. Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname predicates al-
ways 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 informa-
tion used is taken from whatever 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 cannot
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 con-
tents 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 oth-
ers; 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 un-
less 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 infor-
mation 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 nonexis-
tent 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 consid-
eration 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 debugopts
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 separated. 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
exec Show diagnostic information relating to -exec, -execdir,
-ok and -okdir
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 suc-
ceeded or failed.
search Navigate the directory tree verbosely.
stat Print messages as files are examined with the stat and
lstat system calls. The find program tries to minimise
such calls.
tree Show the expression tree in its original and optimized
form.
all Enable all of the other debug options (but help).
help Explain the debugging options.
-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 readdir() 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 specify a filesystem 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 op-
timizer 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 evalu-
ated earlier, and for -a, predicates which are likely to
fail are evaluated earlier.
The cost-based optimizer has a fixed idea of how likely any given
test is to succeed. In some cases the probability takes account
of the specific nature of the test (for example, -type f is as-
sumed to be more likely to succeed than -type c). The cost-based
optimizer is currently being evaluated. If it does not actually
improve the performance of find, it will be removed again. Con-
versely, optimisations that prove to be reliable, robust and ef-
fective may be enabled at lower optimisation 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.
The re-ordering of operations performed by the cost-based opti-
mizer can result in user-visible behaviour change. For example,
the -readable and -empty predicates are sensitive to re-ordering.
If they are run in the order -empty -readable, an error message
will be issued for unreadable directories. If they are run in
the order -readable -empty no error message will be issued. This
is the reason why such operation re-ordering is not performed at
the default optimisation level.
EXPRESSION
The part of the command line after the list of starting points is the
expression. This is a kind of query specification describing how we
match files and what we do with the files that were matched. An expres-
sion is composed of a sequence of things:
Tests Tests return a true or false value, usually on the basis of some
property of a file we are considering. The -empty test for exam-
ple is true only when the current file is empty.
Actions
Actions have side effects (such as printing something on the
standard output) and return either true or false, usually based
on whether or not they are successful. The -print action for ex-
ample prints the name of the current file on the standard output.
Global options
Global options affect the operation of tests and actions speci-
fied on any part of the command line. Global options always re-
turn true. The -depth option for example makes find traverse the
file system in a depth-first order.
Positional options
Positional options affect only tests or actions which follow
them. Positional options always return true. The -regextype op-
tion for example is positional, specifying the regular expression
dialect for regular expressions occurring later on the command
line.
Operators
Operators join together the other items within the expression.
They include for example -o (meaning logical OR) and -a (meaning
logical AND). Where an operator is missing, -a is assumed.
The -print action is performed on all files for which the whole expres-
sion is true, unless it contains an action other than -prune or -quit.
Actions which inhibit the default -print are -delete, -exec, -execdir,
-ok, -okdir, -fls, -fprint, -fprintf, -ls, -print and -printf.
The -delete action also acts like an option (since it implies -depth).
POSITIONAL OPTIONS
Positional options always return true. They affect only tests occurring
later on the command line.
-daystart
Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and
-mtime) from the beginning of today rather than from 24 hours
ago. This option only affects tests which appear later on the
command line.
-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 op-
tion 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 predicate 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 predicates always to return false.
-regextype type
Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and
-iregex tests which occur later on the command line. To see
which regular expression types are known, use -regextype help.
The Texinfo documentation (see SEE ALSO) explains the meaning of
and differences between the various types of regular expression.
If you do not use this option, find behaves as if the regular ex-
pression type emacs had been specified.
-warn, -nowarn
Turn warning messages on or off. These warnings apply only to
the command line usage, not to any conditions that find might en-
counter when it searches directories. The default behaviour cor-
responds to -warn if standard input is a tty, and to -nowarn oth-
erwise. If a warning message relating to command-line usage is
produced, the exit status of find is not affected. If the
POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set, and -warn is also
used, it is not specified which, if any, warnings will be active.
GLOBAL OPTIONS
Global options always return true. Global options take effect even for
tests which occur earlier on the command line. To prevent confusion,
global options should be specified on the command-line after the list of
start points, just before the first test, positional option or action.
If you specify a global option in some other place, find will issue a
warning message explaining that this can be confusing.
The global options occur after the list of start points, and so are not
the same kind of option as -L, for example.
-d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD, Ma-
cOS X and OpenBSD.
-depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself.
The -delete action also implies -depth.
-files0-from file
Read the starting points from file instead of getting them on the
command line. In contrast to the known limitations of passing
starting points via arguments on the command line, namely the
limitation of the amount of file names, and the inherent ambigu-
ity of file names clashing with option names, using this option
allows to safely pass an arbitrary number of starting points to
find.
Using this option and passing starting points on the command line
is mutually exclusive, and is therefore not allowed at the same
time.
The file argument is mandatory. One can use -files0-from - to
read the list of starting points from the standard input stream,
and e.g. from a pipe. In this case, the actions -ok and -okdir
are not allowed, because they would obviously interfere with
reading from standard input in order to get a user confirmation.
The starting points in file have to be separated by ASCII NUL
characters. Two consecutive NUL characters, i.e., a starting
point with a Zero-length file name is not allowed and will lead
to an error diagnostic followed by a non-Zero exit code later.
In the case the given file is empty, find does not process any
starting point and therefore will exit immediately after parsing
the program arguments. This is unlike the standard invocation
where find assumes the current directory as starting point if no
path argument is passed.
The processing of the starting points is otherwise as usual, e.g.
find will recurse into subdirectories unless otherwise prevented.
To process only the starting points, one can additionally pass
-maxdepth 0.
Further notes: if a file is listed more than once in the input
file, it is unspecified whether it is visited more than once. If
the file is mutated during the operation of find, the result is
unspecified as well. Finally, the seek position within the named
file at the time find exits, be it with -quit or in any other
way, is also unspecified. By "unspecified" here is meant that it
may or may not work or do any specific thing, and that the behav-
ior may change from platform to platform, or from findutils re-
lease to release.
-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).
Furthermore, find with the -ignore_readdir_race option will ig-
nore errors of the -delete action in the case the file has disap-
peared since the parent directory was read: it will not output an
error diagnostic, and the return code of the -delete action will
be true.
-maxdepth levels
Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of direc-
tories below the starting-points. Using -maxdepth 0 means only
apply the tests and actions to the starting-points themselves.
-mindepth levels
Do not apply any tests or actions at levels less than levels (a
non-negative integer). Using -mindepth 1 means process all files
except the starting-points.
-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 sub-
directories 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 vol-
ume 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 examined, 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
Some tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison between
the file currently 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 previ-
ous -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.
A numeric argument n can be specified to tests (like -amin, -mtime,
-gid, -inum, -links, -size, -uid and -used) as
+n for greater than n,
-n for less than n,
n for exactly n.
Supported tests:
-amin n
File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n minutes
ago.
-anewer reference
Time of the last access of the current file is more recent than
that of the last data modification of the reference file. If
reference is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L option
is in effect, then the time of the last data modification of the
file it points to is always used.
-atime n
File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly 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 less than, more than or exactly n
minutes ago.
-cnewer reference
Time of the last status change of the current file is more recent
than that of the last data modification of the reference file.
If reference is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L op-
tion is in effect, then the time of the last data modification of
the file it points to is always used.
-ctime n
File's status was last changed less than, more than or exactly
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) by the current user.
This takes into account access control lists and other permis-
sions 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 sys-
tems implement access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot
make use of the UID mapping information held on the server. Be-
cause this test is based only on the result of the access(2) sys-
tem call, there is no guarantee 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 different versions of Unix; an incomplete list of
filesystem types that are accepted on some version of Unix or an-
other 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 filesys-
tems.
-gid n File's numeric group ID is less than, more than or exactly 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 un-
less 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 smaller than, greater than or exactly 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 less than, more than or exactly n hard links.
-lname pattern
File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pat-
tern. The metacharacters do not treat `/' or `.' specially. If
the -L option or the -follow option is in effect, this test re-
turns false unless the symbolic link is broken.
-mmin n
File's data was last modified less than, more than or exactly n
minutes ago.
-mtime n
File's data was last modified less than, more than or exactly
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
of the file names are removed, the pattern should not include a
slash, because `-name a/b' will never match anything (and you
probably want to use -path instead). An exception to this is
when using only a slash as pattern (`-name /'), because that is a
valid string for matching the root directory "/" (because the
base name of "/" is "/"). A warning is issued if you try to pass
a pattern containing a - but not consisting solely of one -
slash, unless the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set or
the option -nowarn is used.
To ignore a directory and the files under it, use -prune rather
than checking every file in the tree; see an example in the de-
scription of that action. 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 forget to enclose the pattern in quotes in order
to protect it from expansion by the shell.
-newer reference
Time of the last data modification of the current file is more
recent than that of the last data modification of the reference
file. If reference is a symbolic link and the -H option or the
-L option is in effect, then the time of the last data modifica-
tion of the file it points to is always used.
-newerXY reference
Succeeds if timestamp X of the file being considered is newer
than timestamp Y of the file reference. The letters X and Y can
be any of the following letters:
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 combinations 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 re-
sults. 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 ex-
ists). To ignore a whole directory tree, use -prune rather than
checking every file in the tree. 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 di-
rectory 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 is part of the POSIX 2008 stan-
dard.
-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 specify 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 you 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 consis-
tent with the behaviour of -perm -000).
-perm +mode
This is no longer supported (and has been deprecated since 2005).
Use -perm /mode instead.
-readable
Matches files which are readable by the current user. This takes
into account access control lists and other permissions artefacts
which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the ac-
cess(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do
UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement ac-
cess(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 regular 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 less than, more than or exactly n units of space,
rounding up. 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 kibibytes (KiB, units of 1024 bytes)
`M' for mebibytes (MiB, units of 1024 * 1024 = 1048576 bytes)
`G' for gibibytes (GiB, units of 1024 * 1024 * 1024 =
1073741824 bytes)
The size is simply the st_size member of the struct stat popu-
lated by the lstat (or stat) system call, rounded up as shown
above. In other words, it's consistent with the result you get
for ls -l. Bear in mind that the `%k' and `%b' format specifiers
of -printf handle sparse files differently. The `b' suffix al-
ways denotes 512-byte blocks and never 1024-byte blocks, which is
different to the behaviour of -ls.
The + and - prefixes signify greater than and less than, as
usual; i.e., an exact size of n units does not match. Bear in
mind that the size is rounded up to the next unit. Therefore
-size -1M is not equivalent to -size -1048576c. The former only
matches empty files, the latter matches files from 0 to 1,048,575
bytes.
-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)
To search for more than one type at once, you can supply the com-
bined list of type letters separated by a comma `,' (GNU exten-
sion).
-uid n File's numeric user ID is less than, more than or exactly n.
-used n
File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n days af-
ter 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 by the current user. This takes
into account access control lists and other permissions artefacts
which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the ac-
cess(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do
UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement ac-
cess(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 sym-
bolic 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. If
a symbolic link is broken (because the thing it points to does
not exist or the link points to itself) then -xtype will behave
the same as -type.
-context pattern
(SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pattern.
ACTIONS
-delete
Delete files or directories; true if removal succeeded. If the
removal failed, an error message is issued and find's exit status
will be nonzero (when it eventually exits).
Warning: Don't forget that find evaluates the command line as an
expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to delete
everything below the starting points you specified.
The use of the -delete action on the command line automatically
turns on the -depth option. As in turn -depth makes -prune inef-
fective, the -delete action cannot usefully be combined with
-prune.
Often, the user might want to test a find command line with
-print prior to adding -delete for the actual removal run. To
avoid surprising results, it is usually best to remember to use
-depth explicitly during those earlier test runs.
The -delete action will fail to remove a directory unless it is
empty.
Together with the -ignore_readdir_race option, find will ignore
errors of the -delete action in the case the file has disappeared
since the parent directory was read: it will not output an error
diagnostic, not change the exit code to nonzero, and the return
code of the -delete action will be true.
-exec command ;
Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following ar-
guments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until an
argument consisting of `;' is encountered. The string `{}' is
replaced by the current file name being processed everywhere 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 sec-
tion for examples of the use of the -exec option. The specified
command is run once for each matched file. The command is exe-
cuted 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 invoca-
tions 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, and it must appear at the end, immediately
before the `+'; it needs to be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to
protect it from interpretation by the shell. The command is exe-
cuted in the starting directory. If any invocation with the `+'
form returns a non-zero value as exit status, then find returns a
non-zero exit status. If find encounters an error, this can
sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may
not be run at all. For this reason -exec my-com-
mand ... {} + -quit may not result in my-command actually being
run. This variant of -exec always returns true.
-execdir command ;
-execdir command {} +
Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the subdirec-
tory containing the matched file, which is not normally the di-
rectory in which you started find. As with -exec, the {} should
be quoted if find is being invoked from a shell. This a much
more secure method for invoking commands, as it avoids race con-
ditions during resolution of the paths to the matched files. As
with the -exec action, the `+' form of -execdir will build a com-
mand 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 environment variable does not reference `.'; otherwise, an
attacker can run any commands they like by leaving an appropri-
ately-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. If any invocation with
the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit status, then find
returns a non-zero exit status. If find encounters an error,
this can sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending com-
mands may not be run at all. The result of the action depends on
whether the + or the ; variant is being used; -execdir com-
mand {} + always returns true, while -execdir command {} ; re-
turns true only if command returns 0.
-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/stdout and /dev/stderr are han-
dled 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 FILE-
NAMES 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 created, even if the predicate is never matched.
See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how un-
usual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprintf file format
True; like -printf 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 un-
usual characters in filenames are handled.
-ls True; list current file in ls -dils format on standard output.
The block counts are of 1 KB blocks, unless the environment vari-
able 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. This action may
not be specified together with the -files0-from option.
The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular
expressions to determine if it is an affirmative or negative re-
sponse. 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
definition, find's own definition will be used. In either case,
the interpretation of the regular expression itself will be af-
fected 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 redirected from /dev/null. This ac-
tion may not be specified together with the -files0-from option.
-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 filenames 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 programs that
process the find output. This option corresponds to the -0 op-
tion of xargs.
-printf format
True; print format on the standard output, interpreting `\' es-
capes and `%' directives. Field widths and precisions can be
specified as with the printf(3) C function. 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 character, so they both are printed.
%% A literal percent sign.
%a File's last access time in the format returned by the C
ctime(3) function.
%Ak File's last access time in the format specified by k,
which is either `@' or a directive for the C strftime(3)
function. The following shows an incomplete list of pos-
sible values for k. Please refer to the documentation of
strftime(3) for the full list. Some of the conversion
specification characters might not be available on all
systems, due to differences in the implementation of the
strftime(3) library function.
@ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with frac-
tional 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.xxxxxxxxxx)
+ 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 vari-
able). The seconds field includes a fractional
part.
X locale's time representation (H:M:S). The seconds
field includes a fractional part.
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 (Sun-
day..Saturday)
b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
B locale's full month name, variable length (Janu-
ary..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)
F date (yyyy-mm-dd)
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.
%Bk File's birth time, i.e., its creation time, in the format
specified by k, which is the same as for %A. This direc-
tive produces an empty string if the underlying operating
system or filesystem does not support birth times.
%c File's last status change time in the format returned by
the C ctime(3) function.
%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
starting-point.
%D The device number on which the file exists (the st_dev
field of struct stat), in decimal.
%f Print the basename; the file's name with any leading di-
rectories removed (only the last element). For /, the re-
sult is `/'. See the EXAMPLES section for an example.
%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 Dirname; the Leading directories of the file's name (all
but the last element). If the file name contains no
slashes (since it is in the current directory) the %h
specifier expands to `.'. For files which are themselves
directories and contain a slash (including /), %h expands
to the empty string. See the EXAMPLES section for an ex-
ample.
%H Starting-point under which file was found.
%i File's inode number (in decimal).
%k The amount of disk space used for this file in 1 KB
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' numbers which most Unix implementations use,
but if your particular implementation uses an unusual or-
dering of octal permissions bits, you will see a differ-
ence 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 supported 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 starting-point under
which it was found removed.
%s File's size in bytes.
%S File's sparseness. This is calculated as (BLOCK-
SIZE*st_blocks / st_size). The exact value you will get
for an ordinary file of a certain length is system-depen-
dent. 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. In general the
number of blocks used by a file is file system dependent.
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(3) function.
%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 symbolic links:
`L'=loop, `N'=nonexistent, `?' for any other error when
determining the type of the target of a symbolic link.
%Z (SELinux only) file's security context.
%{ %[ %(
Reserved for future use.
A `%' character followed by any other character is discarded, but
the other character is printed (don't rely on this, as further
format characters may be introduced). A `%' at the end of the
format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no fol-
lowing 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 di-
rectives that do not support these flags include G, U, b, D, k
and n. The `-' format flag is supported and changes the align-
ment of a field from right-justified (which is the default) to
left-justified.
See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how un-
usual characters in filenames are handled.
-prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it. If
-depth is given, then -prune has no effect. Because -delete im-
plies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete to-
gether. 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
-quit Exit immediately (with return value zero if no errors have oc-
curred). This is different to -prune because -prune only applies
to the contents of pruned directories, while -quit simply makes
find stop immediately. No child processes will be left running.
Any command lines which have been built by -exec ... + or -ex-
ecdir ... + are invoked before the program is exited. After
-quit is executed, no more files specified on the command line
will be processed. For example,
`find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit` will print only `/tmp/foo`.
One common use of -quit is to stop searching the file system once
we have found what we want. For example, if we want to find just
a single file we can do this:
find / -name needle -print -quit
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: `\(...\)' in-
stead 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
-a; 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 dif-
ferent types of thing, but traversing the filesystem hierarchy
only once. The -fprintf action can be used to list the various
matched items into several different output files.
Please note that -a when specified implicitly (for example by two tests
appearing without an explicit operator between them) or explicitly has
higher precedence than -o. This means that find . -name afile -o -name
bfile -print will never print afile.
UNUSUAL FILENAMES
Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is un-
der the control of other users. This includes file names, sizes, modi-
fication 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 terminal.
-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 envi-
ronment 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 us-
ing -print0 instead of -print.
The -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is. This may
change in a future release.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the
POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable. The following options are speci-
fied in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, 2016 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 metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for
example) 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. Furthermore, GNU find allows multiple types to
be specified at once in a comma-separated list.
-ok Supported. Interpretation of the response is according to the
`yes' and `no' patterns selected by setting the LC_MESSAGES envi-
ronment variable. When the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable
is set, these patterns are taken system's definition of a posi-
tive (yes) or negative (no) response. See the system's documen-
tation for nl_langinfo(3), in particular YESEXPR and NOEXPR.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT 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 al-
ways 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 arguments (for example +a+x) which are not valid
in POSIX are supported for backward-compatibility.
Other primaries
The primaries -atime, -ctime, -depth, -exec, -group, -links,
-mtime, -nogroup, -nouser, -ok, -path, -print, -prune, -size,
-user and -xdev are all supported.
The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the
logical AND/OR operators -a and -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 visited 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 directo-
ries which contain entries which are hard links to an ancestor will of-
ten be lower than they otherwise should be. This can mean that GNU find
will sometimes optimize away the visiting of a subdirectory which is ac-
tually a link to an ancestor. Since find does not actually enter such a
subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic message. Al-
though this behaviour may be somewhat confusing, it is unlikely that
anybody actually depends on this behaviour. If the leaf optimisation
has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry will always be ex-
amined and the diagnostic message will be issued where it is appropri-
ate. 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 mes-
sage 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 sym-
bolic 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 internationalization variables.
LC_COLLATE
The POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pat-
tern matching to be used for the -name option. GNU find uses the
fnmatch(3) library function, and so support for LC_COLLATE de-
pends on the system library. This variable also affects the in-
terpretation of the response to -ok; while the LC_MESSAGES vari-
able selects the actual pattern used to interpret the response to
-ok, the interpretation 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 expressions 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 regu-
lar expressions used to interpret the response to the prompt is-
sued by -ok. The LC_CTYPE environment variable will also affect
which characters 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 de-
termines the interpretation of the response to the prompt made by
the -ok action.
NLSPATH
Determines the location of the internationalisation message cata-
logues.
PATH Affects the directories which are searched to find the executa-
bles invoked by -exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir.
POSIXLY_CORRECT
Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls. If POSIXLY_COR-
RECT 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 diag-
nostics 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 transla-
tions.
TZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format
directives of -printf and -fprintf.
EXAMPLES
Simple `find|xargs` approach
• Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete
them.
$ find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames
containing newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces.
Safer `find -print0 | xargs -0` approach
• 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.
$ find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
The -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid hav-
ing to call stat(2) on every file.
Note that there is still a race between the time find traverses the hi-
erarchy printing the matching filenames, and the time the process exe-
cuted by xargs works with that file.
Processing arbitrary starting points
• Given that another program proggy pre-filters and creates a huge
NUL-separated list of files, process those as starting points,
and find all regular, empty files among them:
$ proggy | find -files0-from - -maxdepth 0 -type f -empty
The use of `-files0-from -` means to read the names of the start-
ing points from standard input, i.e., from the pipe; and
-maxdepth 0 ensures that only explicitly those entries are exam-
ined without recursing into directories (in the case one of the
starting points is one).
Executing a command for each file
• Run file on every file in or below the current directory.
$ find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;
Notice that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to pro-
tect them from interpretation as shell script punctuation. The
semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash,
though single quotes could have been used in that case also.
In many cases, one might prefer the `-exec ... +` or better the `-ex-
ecdir ... +` syntax for performance and security reasons.
Traversing the filesystem just once - for 2 different actions
• Traverse the filesystem just once, listing set-user-ID files and
directories into /root/suid.txt and large files into
/root/big.txt.
$ find / \
\( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \
\( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)
This example uses the line-continuation character '\' on the
first two lines to instruct the shell to continue reading the
command on the next line.
Searching files by age
• Search for files in your home directory which have been modified
in the last twenty-four hours.
$ find $HOME -mtime 0
This command works this way because the time since each file was
last modified is divided by 24 hours and any remainder is dis-
carded. 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.
Searching files by permissions
• Search for files which are executable but not readable.
$ find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
• Search for files which have read and write permission for their
owner, and group, but which other users can read but not write
to.
$ find . -perm 664
Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits
set (for example if someone can execute the file) will not be
matched.
• 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 ex-
ecutable bit).
$ find . -perm -664
This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
• Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or
their group, or anybody else).
$ find . -perm /222
• Search for files which are writable by either their owner or
their group.
$ 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 representation of the file mode, and the other two
use the symbolic form. The files don't have to be writable by
both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.
• Search for files which are writable by both their owner and their
group.
$ find . -perm -220
$ find . -perm -g+w,u+w
Both these commands do the same thing.
• A more elaborate search on permissions.
$ 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 executable for anybody
(! -perm /111 or ! -perm /a+x respectively).
Pruning - omitting files and subdirectories
• Copy the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omit files and
directories named .snapshot (and anything in them). It also
omits files or directories whose name ends in `~', but not their
contents.
$ cd /source-dir
$ find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name '*~' -print0 \) \
| cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir
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 re-
turns 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 irrelevant). The expression on the right hand
side of the -o is in parentheses only for clarity. 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.
• Given the following directory of projects and their associated
SCM administrative directories, perform an efficient search for
the projects' roots:
$ find repo/ \
\( -exec test -d '{}/.svn' \; \
-or -exec test -d '{}/.git' \; \
-or -exec test -d '{}/CVS' \; \
\) -print -prune
Sample output:
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 direc-
tories 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.
Other useful examples
• Search for several file types.
$ find /tmp -type f,d,l
Search for files, directories, and symbolic links in the direc-
tory /tmp passing these types as a comma-separated list (GNU ex-
tension), which is otherwise equivalent to the longer, yet more
portable:
$ find /tmp \( -type f -o -type d -o -type l \)
• Search for files with the particular name needle and stop immedi-
ately when we find the first one.
$ find / -name needle -print -quit
• Demonstrate the interpretation of the %f and %h format directives
of the -printf action for some corner-cases. Here is an example
including some output.
$ find . .. / /tmp /tmp/TRACE compile compile/64/tests/find -maxdepth 0 -printf '[%h][%f]\n'
[.][.]
[.][..]
[][/]
[][tmp]
[/tmp][TRACE]
[.][compile]
[compile/64/tests][find]
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 de-
scription, but if the return value is non-zero, you should not rely on
the correctness of the results of find.
When some error occurs, find may stop immediately, without completing
all the actions specified. For example, some starting points may not
have been examined or some pending program invocations for
-exec ... {} + or -execdir ... {} + may not have been performed.
HISTORY
A find program appeared in Version 5 Unix as part of the Programmer's
Workbench project and was written by Dick Haight. Doug McIlroy's A Re-
search UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts from the Programmer’s Manual,
1971-1986 provides some additional details; you can read it on-line at
<https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf>.
GNU find was originally written by Eric Decker, with enhancements by
David MacKenzie, Jay Plett, and Tim Wood. The idea for find -print0 and
xargs -0 came from Dan Bernstein.
COMPATIBILITY
As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for exam-
ple) used in filename patterns 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
-files0-from 4.9.0
-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 was removed in findutils-4.5.12, in favour of
-perm /MODE. The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since findu-
tils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.
NON-BUGS
Operator precedence surprises
The command find . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print
afile because this is actually equivalent to find . -name afile -o \(
-name bfile -a -print \). Remember that the precedence of -a is higher
than that of -o and when there is no operator specified between tests,
-a is assumed.
“paths must precede expression” error message
$ find . -name *.c -print
find: paths must precede expression
find: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?
This happens when the shell could expand the pattern *.c to more than
one file name existing in the current directory, and passing the result-
ing file names in the command line to find like this:
find . -name frcode.c locate.c word_io.c -print
That command is of course not going to work, because the -name predicate
allows exactly only one pattern as argument. Instead of doing things
this way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the wild-
card, thus allowing find to use the pattern with the wildcard during the
search for file name matching instead of file names expanded by the par-
ent shell:
$ 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 exam-
ple, the -exec action is inherently insecure, and -execdir should be
used instead.
The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
REPORTING BUGS
GNU findutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/#get-
help>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
Report any other issue via the form at the GNU Savannah bug tracker:
<https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils>
General topics about the GNU findutils package are discussed at the
bug-findutils mailing list:
<https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-findutils>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1990–2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+:
GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
chmod(1), locate(1), ls(1), updatedb(1), xargs(1), lstat(2), stat(2),
ctime(3) fnmatch(3), printf(3), strftime(3), locatedb(5), regex(7)
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/find>
or available locally via: info find
FIND(1)
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