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@(#)find.1 8.7 (Berkeley) 5/9/95
$FreeBSD: head/usr.bin/find/find.1 82662 2001-08-31 15:48:00Z ru $
.Dd May 3, 2001 .Dt FIND 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm find .Nd walk a file hierarchy .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P .Op Fl EXdsx .Op Fl f Ar pathname .Op Ar pathname ... .Ar expression .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm Find recursively descends the directory tree for each .Ar pathname listed, evaluating an .Ar expression (composed of the .Dq primaries and .Dq operands listed below) in terms of each file in the tree.
p The options are as follows: l -tag -width indent t Fl E Interpret regular expressions followed by c -regex and c -iregex options as extended (modern) regular expressions rather than basic regular expressions (BRE's). The .Xr re_format 7 manual page fully describes both formats. t Fl H The .Fl H option causes the file information and file type (see .Xr stat 2 ) returned for each symbolic link specified on the command line to be those of the file referenced by the link, not the link itself. If the referenced file does not exist, the file information and type will be for the link itself. File information of all symbolic links not on the command line is that of the link itself. t Fl L The .Fl L option causes the file information and file type (see .Xr stat 2 ) returned for each symbolic link to be those of the file referenced by the link, not the link itself. If the referenced file does not exist, the file information and type will be for the link itself. t Fl P The .Fl P option causes the file information and file type (see .Xr stat 2 ) returned for each symbolic link to be those of the link itself. This is the default. t Fl X The .Fl X option is a modification to permit .Nm to be safely used in conjunction with .Xr xargs 1 . If a file name contains any of the delimiting characters used by .Xr xargs 1 , a diagnostic message is displayed on standard error, and the file is skipped. The delimiting characters include single
q Dq Li " ' " and double
q Dq Li " \*q " quotes, backslash
q Dq Li \e , space, tab and newline characters. t Fl d The .Fl d option causes .Nm to perform a depth-first traversal, i.e., directories are visited in post-order and all entries in a directory will be acted on before the directory itself. By default, .Nm visits directories in pre-order, i.e., before their contents. Note, the default is .Em not a breadth-first traversal. t Fl f The .Fl f option specifies a file hierarchy for .Nm to traverse. File hierarchies may also be specified as the operands immediately following the options. t Fl s The .Fl s option causes .Nm to traverse the file hierarchies in lexicographical order, i.e., alphabetical order within each directory. Note: .Ql find -s and .Ql "find | sort" may give different results. t Fl x The .Fl x option prevents .Nm from descending into directories that have a device number different than that of the file from which the descent began. .El .Sh PRIMARIES l -tag -width indent t Ic -amin Ar n True if the difference between the file last access time and the time .Nm was started, rounded up to the next full minute, is .Ar n minutes. t Ic -anewer Ar file Same as c -neweram . t Ic -atime Ar n True if the difference between the file last access time and the time .Nm was started, rounded up to the next full 24-hour period, is .Ar n 24-hour periods. t Ic -cmin Ar n True if the difference between the time of last change of file status information and the time .Nm was started, rounded up to the next full minute, is .Ar n minutes. t Ic -cnewer Ar file Same as c -newercm . t Ic -ctime Ar n True if the difference between the time of last change of file status information and the time .Nm was started, rounded up to the next full 24-hour period, is .Ar n 24-hour periods. t Ic -delete Delete found files and/or directories. Always returns true. This executes from the current working directory as .Nm recurses down the tree. It will not attempt to delete a filename with a .Dq Pa / character in its pathname relative to .Dq Pa . for security reasons. Depth-first traversal processing is implied by this option. t Ic -empty True if the current file or directory is empty. t Ic -exec Ar utility Op Ar argument ... ; True if the program named .Ar utility returns a zero value as its exit status. Optional .Ar arguments may be passed to the utility. The expression must be terminated by a semicolon
q Dq Li ; . If the string .Dq Li {} appears anywhere in the utility name or the arguments it is replaced by the pathname of the current file. .Ar Utility will be executed from the directory from which .Nm was executed. .Ar Utility and .Ar arguments are not subject to the further expansion of shell patterns and constructs. t Ic -execdir Ar utility Op Ar argument ... ; The c -execdir primary is identical to the c -exec primary with the exception that .Ar utility will be executed from the directory that holds the current file. The filename substituted for the string .Dq Li {} is not qualified. t Ic -flags Op Fl Ns Ar flags This primary evaluates to true if exactly those flags of the file are set which are also set using the specified .Ar flags (if these are not preceded by a dash
q Dq Li - , or if they match the specified flags (if these are preceded by a dash). The .Ar flags are specified using symbolic names (see .Xr chflags 1 ) . Note that this is different from c -perm , which only allows you to specify flags which are set. t Ic -fstype Ar type True if the file is contained in a file system of type .Ar type . The .Xr sysctl 8 command can be used to find out the types of filesystems that are available on the system:
p .Dl "sysctl vfs"
p In addition, there are two pseudo-types, .Dq Li local and .Dq Li rdonly . The former matches any file system physically mounted on the system where the .Nm is being executed and the latter matches any file system which is mounted read-only. t Ic -group Ar gname True if the file belongs to the group .Ar gname . If .Ar gname is numeric and there is no such group name, then .Ar gname is treated as a group ID. t Ic -iname Ar pattern Like c -name , but the match is case insensitive. t Ic -inum Ar n True if the file has inode number .Ar n . t Ic -ipath Ar pattern Like c -path , but the match is case insensitive. t Ic -iregex Ar pattern Like c -regex , but the match is case insensitive. t Ic -links Ar n True if the file has .Ar n links. t Ic -ls This primary always evaluates to true. The following information for the current file is written to standard output: its inode number, size in 512-byte blocks, file permissions, number of hard links, owner, group, size in bytes, last modification time, and pathname. If the file is a block or character special file, the major and minor numbers will be displayed instead of the size in bytes. If the file is a symbolic link, the pathname of the linked-to file will be displayed preceded by .Dq Li -> . The format is identical to that produced by k -words .Nm ls Fl dgils . .Ek t Ic -maxdepth Ar n True if the depth of the current file into the tree is less than or equal to .Ar n . t Ic -mindepth Ar n True if the depth of the current file into the tree is greater than or equal to .Ar n . t Ic -mmin Ar n True if the difference between the file last modification time and the time .Nm was started, rounded up to the next full minute, is .Ar n minutes. t Ic -mnewer Ar file Same as c -newer . t Ic -mtime Ar n True if the difference between the file last modification time and the time .Nm was started, rounded up to the next full 24-hour period, is .Ar n 24-hour periods. t Ic -name Ar pattern True if the last component of the pathname being examined matches .Ar pattern . Special shell pattern matching characters .Dq ( Li [ , .Dq Li ] , .Dq Li * , and .Dq Li ? ) may be used as part of .Ar pattern . These characters may be matched explicitly by escaping them with a backslash
q Dq Li \e . t Ic -newer Ar file True if the current file has a more recent last modification time than .Ar file . t Ic -newer Ns Ar X Ns Ar Y Ar file True if the current file has a more recent last access time .Ar ( X Ns = Ns Cm a ) , change time .Ar ( X Ns = Ns Cm c ) , or modification time .Ar ( X Ns = Ns Cm m ) than the last access time .Ar ( Y Ns = Ns Cm a ) , change time .Ar ( Y Ns = Ns Cm c ) , or modification time .Ar ( Y Ns = Ns Cm m ) of .Ar file . In addition, if .Ar Y Ns = Ns Cm t , then .Ar file is instead interpreted as a direct date specification of the form understood by .Xr cvs 1 . Note that c -newermm is equivalent to c -newer . t Ic -nogroup True if the file belongs to an unknown group. t Ic -nouser True if the file belongs to an unknown user. t Ic -ok Ar utility Op Ar argument ... ; The c -ok primary is identical to the c -exec primary with the exception that .Nm requests user affirmation for the execution of the .Ar utility by printing a message to the terminal and reading a response. If the response is other than .Dq Li y the command is not executed and the value of the c -ok expression is false. t Ic -okdir Ar utility Op Ar argument ... ; The c -okdir primary is identical to the c -execdir primary with the same exception as described for the c -ok primary. t Ic -path Ar pattern True if the pathname being examined matches .Ar pattern . Special shell pattern matching characters .Dq ( Li [ , .Dq Li ] , .Dq Li * , and .Dq Li ? ) may be used as part of .Ar pattern . These characters may be matched explicitly by escaping them with a backslash
q Dq Li \e . Slashes
q Dq Li / are treated as normal characters and do not have to be matched explicitly. t Ic -perm Oo Fl Oc Ns Ar mode The .Ar mode may be either symbolic (see .Xr chmod 1 ) or an octal number. If the mode is symbolic, a starting value of zero is assumed and the mode sets or clears permissions without regard to the process' file mode creation mask. If the mode is octal, only bits 07777
q Dv S_ISUID | S_ISGID | S_ISTXT | S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG | S_IRWXO of the file's mode bits participate in the comparison. If the mode is preceded by a dash
q Dq Li - , this primary evaluates to true if at least all of the bits in the mode are set in the file's mode bits. If the mode is preceded by a plus
q Dq Li + , this primary evaluates to true if any of the bits in the mode are set in the file's mode bits. Otherwise, this primary evaluates to true if the bits in the mode exactly match the file's mode bits. Note, the first character of a symbolic mode may not be a dash
q Dq Li - . t Ic -print This primary always evaluates to true. It prints the pathname of the current file to standard output. If none of c -exec , -ls , -print0 , or c -ok is specified, the given expression shall be effectively replaced by .Cm ( Ar "given expression" Cm ) Ic -print . t Ic -print0 This primary always evaluates to true. It prints the pathname of the current file to standard output, followed by an .Tn ASCII NUL character (character code 0). t Ic -prune This primary always evaluates to true. It causes .Nm to not descend into the current file. Note, the c -prune primary has no effect if the .Fl d option was specified. t Ic -regex Ar pattern True if the whole path of the file matches .Ar pattern using regular expression. To match a file named .Dq Pa ./foo/xyzzy , you can use the regular expression .Dq Li ".*/[xyz]*" or .Dq Li ".*/foo/.*" , but not .Dq Li xyzzy or .Dq Li /foo/ . t Ic -size Ar n Ns Op Cm c True if the file's size, rounded up, in 512-byte blocks is .Ar n . If .Ar n is followed by a .Cm c , then the primary is true if the file's size is .Ar n bytes (characters). t Ic -type Ar t True if the file is of the specified type. Possible file types are as follows:
p l -tag -width indent -compact t Cm b block special t Cm c character special t Cm d directory t Cm f regular file t Cm l symbolic link t Cm p FIFO t Cm s socket .El t Ic -user Ar uname True if the file belongs to the user .Ar uname . If .Ar uname is numeric and there is no such user name, then .Ar uname is treated as a user ID. .El
p All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be preceded by a plus sign
q Dq Li + or a minus sign
q Dq Li - . A preceding plus sign means .Dq more than n , a preceding minus sign means .Dq less than n and neither means .Dq exactly n . .Sh OPERATORS The primaries may be combined using the following operators. The operators are listed in order of decreasing precedence.
p l -tag -width "( expression )" -compact t Cm ( Ar expression Cm ) This evaluates to true if the parenthesized expression evaluates to true.
p t Cm ! Ar expression This is the unary .Tn NOT operator. It evaluates to true if the expression is false.
p t Ar expression Cm -and Ar expression t Ar expression expression The .Cm -and operator is the logical .Tn AND operator. As it is implied by the juxtaposition of two expressions it does not have to be specified. The expression evaluates to true if both expressions are true. The second expression is not evaluated if the first expression is false.
p t Ar expression Cm -or Ar expression The .Cm -or operator is the logical .Tn OR operator. The expression evaluates to true if either the first or the second expression is true. The second expression is not evaluated if the first expression is true. .El
p All operands and primaries must be separate arguments to .Nm . Primaries which themselves take arguments expect each argument to be a separate argument to .Nm . .Sh EXAMPLES The following examples are shown as given to the shell: l -tag -width indent t Li "find / \e! -name \*q*.c\*q -print" Print out a list of all the files whose names do not end in
a .c . t Li "find / -newer ttt -user wnj -print" Print out a list of all the files owned by user .Dq wnj that are newer than the file
a ttt . t Li "find / \e! \e( -newer ttt -user wnj \e) -print" Print out a list of all the files which are not both newer than
a ttt and owned by .Dq wnj . t Li "find / \e( -newer ttt -or -user wnj \e) -print" Print out a list of all the files that are either owned by .Dq wnj or that are newer than
a ttt . t Li "find . -newerct '1 minute ago' -print" Print out a list of all the files whose inode change time is more recent than the current time minus one minute. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr chflags 1 , .Xr chmod 1 , .Xr cvs 1 , .Xr locate 1 , .Xr whereis 1 , .Xr which 1 , .Xr stat 2 , .Xr fts 3 , .Xr getgrent 3 , .Xr getpwent 3 , .Xr strmode 3 , .Xr re_format 7 , .Xr symlink 7 .Sh STANDARDS The .Nm utility syntax is a superset of the syntax specified by the .St -p1003.2 standard.
p All the single character options as well as the c -iname , -inum , -iregex , -print0 , -delete , -ls , and c -regex primaries are extensions to .St -p1003.2 .
p Historically, the .Fl d , h and .Fl x options were implemented using the primaries c -depth , -follow , and c -xdev . These primaries always evaluated to true. As they were really global variables that took effect before the traversal began, some legal expressions could have unexpected results. An example is the expression c -print Cm -o Ic -depth . As c -print always evaluates to true, the standard order of evaluation implies that c -depth would never be evaluated. This is not the case.
p The operator .Cm -or was implemented as .Cm -o , and the operator .Cm -and was implemented as .Cm -a .
p Historic implementations of the c -exec and c -ok primaries did not replace the string .Dq Li {} in the utility name or the utility arguments if it had preceding or following non-whitespace characters. This version replaces it no matter where in the utility name or arguments it appears.
p The .Fl E option was implemented on the analogy of .Xr grep 1 and .Xr sed 1 . .Sh BUGS The special characters used by .Nm are also special characters to many shell programs. In particular, the characters .Dq Li * , .Dq Li [ , .Dq Li ] , .Dq Li ? , .Dq Li ( , .Dq Li ) , .Dq Li ! , .Dq Li \e and .Dq Li ; may have to be escaped from the shell.
p As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names and the .Ar expression , it is difficult to specify files named
a -xdev or
a ! . These problems are handled by the .Fl f option and the .Xr getopt 3 .Dq Fl Fl construct.
p The c -delete primary does not interact well with other options that cause the filesystem tree traversal options to be changed. .Sh HISTORY A .Nm command appeared in .At v1 .