{ "mode": "man", "parameter": "find", "section": "", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/find/json", "generated": "2026-09-10T06:02:44Z", "synopsis": "find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...] [expression]", "sections": { "NAME": { "content": "find - search for files in a directory hierarchy\n", "subsections": [] }, "SYNOPSIS": { "content": "find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...] [expression]\n", "subsections": [] }, "DESCRIPTION": { "content": "This manual page documents the GNU version of find. GNU find searches the directory tree\nrooted at each given starting-point by evaluating the given expression from left to right,\naccording to the rules of precedence (see section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known (the\nleft hand side is false for and operations, true for or), at which point find moves on to the\nnext file name. If no starting-point is specified, `.' is assumed.\n\nIf you are using find in an environment where security is important (for example if you are\nusing it to search directories that are writable by other users), you should read the `Secu‐\nrity Considerations' chapter of the findutils documentation, which is called Finding Files\nand comes with findutils. That document also includes a lot more detail and discussion than\nthis manual page, so you may find it a more useful source of information.\n", "subsections": [] }, "OPTIONS": { "content": "The -H, -L and -P options control the treatment of symbolic links. Command-line arguments\nfollowing these are taken to be names of files or directories to be examined, up to the first\nargument that begins with `-', or the argument `(' or `!'. That argument and any following\narguments are taken to be the expression describing what is to be searched for. If no paths\nare given, the current directory is used. If no expression is given, the expression -print\nis used (but you should probably consider using -print0 instead, anyway).\n\nThis manual page talks about `options' within the expression list. These options control the\nbehaviour of find but are specified immediately after the last path name. The five `real'\noptions -H, -L, -P, -D and -O must appear before the first path name, if at all. A double\ndash -- could theoretically be used to signal that any remaining arguments are not options,\nbut this does not really work due to the way find determines the end of the following path\narguments: it does that by reading until an expression argument comes (which also starts with\na `-'). Now, if a path argument would start with a `-', then find would treat it as expres‐\nsion argument instead. Thus, to ensure that all start points are taken as such, and espe‐\ncially to prevent that wildcard patterns expanded by the calling shell are not mistakenly\ntreated as expression arguments, it is generally safer to prefix wildcards or dubious path\nnames with either `./' or to use absolute path names starting with '/'. Alternatively, it is\ngenerally safe though non-portable to use the GNU option -files0-from to pass arbitrary\nstarting points to find.\n\n\n-P Never follow symbolic links. This is the default behaviour. When find examines or\nprints information about files, and the file is a symbolic link, the information used\nshall be taken from the properties of the symbolic link itself.\n\n\n-L Follow symbolic links. When find examines or prints information about files, the in‐\nformation used shall be taken from the properties of the file to which the link\npoints, not from the link itself (unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is un‐\nable to examine the file to which the link points). Use of this option implies\n-noleaf. If you later use the -P option, -noleaf will still be in effect. If -L is\nin effect and find discovers a symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search, the\nsubdirectory pointed to by the symbolic link will be searched.\n\nWhen the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always match against the\ntype of the file that a symbolic link points to rather than the link itself (unless\nthe symbolic link is broken). Actions that can cause symbolic links to become broken\nwhile find is executing (for example -delete) can give rise to confusing behaviour.\nUsing -L causes the -lname and -ilname predicates always to return false.\n\n\n-H Do not follow symbolic links, except while processing the command line arguments.\nWhen find examines or prints information about files, the information used shall be\ntaken from the properties of the symbolic link itself. The only exception to this be‐\nhaviour is when a file specified on the command line is a symbolic link, and the link\ncan be resolved. For that situation, the information used is taken from whatever the\nlink points to (that is, the link is followed). The information about the link itself\nis used as a fallback if the file pointed to by the symbolic link cannot be examined.\nIf -H is in effect and one of the paths specified on the command line is a symbolic\nlink to a directory, the contents of that directory will be examined (though of course\n-maxdepth 0 would prevent this).\n\nIf more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each overrides the others; the last one ap‐\npearing on the command line takes effect. Since it is the default, the -P option should be\nconsidered to be in effect unless either -H or -L is specified.\n\nGNU find frequently stats files during the processing of the command line itself, before any\nsearching has begun. These options also affect how those arguments are processed. Specifi‐\ncally, there are a number of tests that compare files listed on the command line against a\nfile we are currently considering. In each case, the file specified on the command line will\nhave been examined and some of its properties will have been saved. If the named file is in\nfact a symbolic link, and the -P option is in effect (or if neither -H nor -L were speci‐\nfied), the information used for the comparison will be taken from the properties of the sym‐\nbolic link. Otherwise, it will be taken from the properties of the file the link points to.\nIf find cannot follow the link (for example because it has insufficient privileges or the\nlink points to a nonexistent file) the properties of the link itself will be used.\n\nWhen the -H or -L options are in effect, any symbolic links listed as the argument of -newer\nwill be dereferenced, and the timestamp will be taken from the file to which the symbolic\nlink points. The same consideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer.\n\nThe -follow option has a similar effect to -L, though it takes effect at the point where it\nappears (that is, if -L is not used but -follow is, any symbolic links appearing after -fol‐\nlow on the command line will be dereferenced, and those before it will not).\n\n\n-D debugopts\nPrint diagnostic information; this can be helpful to diagnose problems with why find\nis not doing what you want. The list of debug options should be comma separated.\nCompatibility of the debug options is not guaranteed between releases of findutils.\nFor a complete list of valid debug options, see the output of find -D help. Valid de‐\nbug options include\n\nexec Show diagnostic information relating to -exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir\n\nopt Prints diagnostic information relating to the optimisation of the expression\ntree; see the -O option.\n\nrates Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate succeeded or failed.\n\nsearch Navigate the directory tree verbosely.\n\nstat Print messages as files are examined with the stat and lstat system calls. The\nfind program tries to minimise such calls.\n\ntree Show the expression tree in its original and optimised form.\n\nall Enable all of the other debug options (but help).\n\nhelp Explain the debugging options.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "-Olevel", "content": "Enables query optimisation. The find program reorders tests to speed up execution\nwhile preserving the overall effect; that is, predicates with side effects are not re‐\nordered relative to each other. The optimisations performed at each optimisation\nlevel are as follows.\n\n0 Equivalent to optimisation level 1.\n\n1 This is the default optimisation level and corresponds to the traditional be‐\nhaviour. Expressions are reordered so that tests based only on the names of\nfiles (for example -name and -regex) are performed first.\n\n2 Any -type or -xtype tests are performed after any tests based only on the names\nof files, but before any tests that require information from the inode. On\nmany modern versions of Unix, file types are returned by readdir() and so these\npredicates are faster to evaluate than predicates which need to stat the file\nfirst. If you use the -fstype FOO predicate and specify a filesystem type FOO\nwhich is not known (that is, present in `/etc/mtab') at the time find starts,\nthat predicate is equivalent to -false.\n\n3 At this optimisation level, the full cost-based query optimiser is enabled.\nThe order of tests is modified so that cheap (i.e. fast) tests are performed\nfirst and more expensive ones are performed later, if necessary. Within each\ncost band, predicates are evaluated earlier or later according to whether they\nare likely to succeed or not. For -o, predicates which are likely to succeed\nare evaluated earlier, and for -a, predicates which are likely to fail are\nevaluated earlier.\n\nThe cost-based optimiser has a fixed idea of how likely any given test is to succeed.\nIn some cases the probability takes account of the specific nature of the test (for\nexample, -type f is assumed to be more likely to succeed than -type c). The cost-\nbased optimiser is currently being evaluated. If it does not actually improve the\nperformance of find, it will be removed again. Conversely, optimisations that prove\nto be reliable, robust and effective may be enabled at lower optimisation levels over\ntime. However, the default behaviour (i.e. optimisation level 1) will not be changed\nin the 4.3.x release series. The findutils test suite runs all the tests on find at\neach optimisation level and ensures that the result is the same.\n" } ] }, "EXPRESSION": { "content": "The part of the command line after the list of starting points is the expression. This is a\nkind of query specification describing how we match files and what we do with the files that\nwere matched. An expression is composed of a sequence of things:\n\n\nTests Tests return a true or false value, usually on the basis of some property of a file we\nare considering. The -empty test for example is true only when the current file is\nempty.\n\n\nActions\nActions have side effects (such as printing something on the standard output) and re‐\nturn either true or false, usually based on whether or not they are successful. The\n-print action for example prints the name of the current file on the standard output.\n\n\nGlobal options\nGlobal options affect the operation of tests and actions specified on any part of the\ncommand line. Global options always return true. The -depth option for example makes\nfind traverse the file system in a depth-first order.\n\n\nPositional options\nPositional options affect only tests or actions which follow them. Positional options\nalways return true. The -regextype option for example is positional, specifying the\nregular expression dialect for regular expressions occurring later on the command\nline.\n\n\nOperators\nOperators join together the other items within the expression. They include for exam‐\nple -o (meaning logical OR) and -a (meaning logical AND). Where an operator is miss‐\ning, -a is assumed.\n\n\nThe -print action is performed on all files for which the whole expression is true, unless it\ncontains an action other than -prune or -quit. Actions which inhibit the default -print are", "subsections": [ { "name": "-delete -exec -execdir -ok -okdir -fls -fprint -fprintf -ls -print -printf", "content": "The -delete action also acts like an option (since it implies -depth).\n\n\nPOSITIONAL OPTIONS\nPositional options always return true. They affect only tests occurring later on the command\nline.\n\n" }, { "name": "-daystart", "content": "Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and -mtime) from the beginning\nof today rather than from 24 hours ago. This option only affects tests which appear\nlater on the command line.\n\n" }, { "name": "-follow", "content": "Deprecated; use the -L option instead. Dereference symbolic links. Implies -noleaf.\nThe -follow option affects only those tests which appear after it on the command line.\nUnless the -H or -L option has been specified, the position of the -follow option\nchanges the behaviour of the -newer predicate; any files listed as the argument of\n-newer will be dereferenced if they are symbolic links. The same consideration ap‐\nplies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer. Similarly, the -type predicate will always\nmatch against the type of the file that a symbolic link points to rather than the link\nitself. Using -follow causes the -lname and -ilname predicates always to return\nfalse.\n\n\n-regextype type\nChanges the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and -iregex tests which oc‐\ncur later on the command line. To see which regular expression types are known, use\n-regextype help. The Texinfo documentation (see SEE ALSO) explains the meaning of and\ndifferences between the various types of regular expression.\n\n" }, { "name": "-warn, -nowarn", "content": "Turn warning messages on or off. These warnings apply only to the command line usage,\nnot to any conditions that find might encounter when it searches directories. The de‐\nfault behaviour corresponds to -warn if standard input is a tty, and to -nowarn other‐\nwise. If a warning message relating to command-line usage is produced, the exit sta‐\ntus of find is not affected. If the POSIXLYCORRECT environment variable is set, and\n-warn is also used, it is not specified which, if any, warnings will be active.\n\n\nGLOBAL OPTIONS\nGlobal options always return true. Global options take effect even for tests which occur\nearlier on the command line. To prevent confusion, global options should specified on the\ncommand-line after the list of start points, just before the first test, positional option or\naction. If you specify a global option in some other place, find will issue a warning mes‐\nsage explaining that this can be confusing.\n\nThe global options occur after the list of start points, and so are not the same kind of op‐\ntion as -L, for example.\n\n\n-d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD, MacOS X and OpenBSD.\n\n\n-depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself. The -delete action\nalso implies -depth.\n\n\n-files0-from file\nRead the starting points from file instead of getting them on the command line. In\ncontrast to the known limitations of passing starting points via arguments on the com‐\nmand line, namely the limitation of the amount of file names, and the inherent ambigu‐\nity of file names clashing with option names, using this option allows to safely pass\nan arbitrary number of starting points to find.\n\nUsing this option and passing starting points on the command line is mutually exclu‐\nsive, and is therefore not allowed at the same time.\n\nThe file argument is mandatory. One can use -files0-from - to read the list of start‐\ning points from the standard input stream, and e.g. from a pipe. In this case, the\nactions -ok and -okdir are not allowed, because they would obviously interfere with\nreading from standard input in order to get a user confirmation.\n\nThe starting points in file have to be separated by ASCII NUL characters. Two consec‐\nutive NUL characters, i.e., a starting point with a Zero-length file name is not al‐\nlowed and will lead to an error diagnostic followed by a non-Zero exit code later.\n\nIn the case the given file is empty, find does not process any starting point and\ntherefore will exit immediately after parsing the program arguments. This is unlike\nthe standard invocation where find assumes the current directory as starting point if\nno path argument is passed.\n\nThe processing of the starting points is otherwise as usual, e.g. find will recurse\ninto subdirectories unless otherwise prevented. To process only the starting points,\none can additionally pass -maxdepth 0.\n\nFurther notes: if a file is listed more than once in the input file, it is unspecified\nwhether it is visited more than once. If the file is mutated during the operation of\nfind, the result is unspecified as well. Finally, the seek position within the named\nfile at the time find exits, be it with -quit or in any other way, is also unspeci‐\nfied. By \"unspecified\" here is meant that it may or may not work or do any specific\nthing, and that the behavior may change from platform to platform, or from findutils\nrelease to release.\n\n" }, { "name": "-help, --help", "content": "Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.\n\n", "long": "--help" }, { "name": "-ignore_readdir_race", "content": "Normally, find will emit an error message when it fails to stat a file. If you give\nthis option and a file is deleted between the time find reads the name of the file\nfrom the directory and the time it tries to stat the file, no error message will be\nissued. This also applies to files or directories whose names are given on the com‐\nmand line. This option takes effect at the time the command line is read, which means\nthat you cannot search one part of the filesystem with this option on and part of it\nwith this option off (if you need to do that, you will need to issue two find commands\ninstead, one with the option and one without it).\n\nFurthermore, find with the -ignorereaddirrace option will ignore errors of the\n-delete action in the case the file has disappeared since the parent directory was\nread: it will not output an error diagnostic, and the return code of the -delete ac‐\ntion will be true.\n\n\n-maxdepth levels\nDescend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of directories below the start‐\ning-points. Using -maxdepth 0 means only apply the tests and actions to the starting-\npoints themselves.\n\n\n-mindepth levels\nDo not apply any tests or actions at levels less than levels (a non-negative integer).\nUsing -mindepth 1 means process all files except the starting-points.\n\n\n-mount Don't descend directories on other filesystems. An alternate name for -xdev, for com‐\npatibility with some other versions of find.\n\n" }, { "name": "-noignore_readdir_race", "content": "Turns off the effect of -ignorereaddirrace.\n\n" }, { "name": "-noleaf", "content": "Do not optimize by assuming that directories contain 2 fewer subdirectories than their\nhard link count. This option is needed when searching filesystems that do not follow\nthe Unix directory-link convention, such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS filesystems or AFS volume\nmount points. Each directory on a normal Unix filesystem has at least 2 hard links:\nits name and its `.' entry. Additionally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a\n`..' entry linked to that directory. When find is examining a directory, after it has\nstatted 2 fewer subdirectories than the directory's link count, it knows that the rest\nof the entries in the directory are non-directories (`leaf' files in the directory\ntree). If only the files' names need to be examined, there is no need to stat them;\nthis gives a significant increase in search speed.\n\n" }, { "name": "-version, --version", "content": "Print the find version number and exit.\n\n\n-xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems.\n\n\nTESTS\nSome tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison between the file currently\nbeing examined and some reference file specified on the command line. When these tests are\nused, the interpretation of the reference file is determined by the options -H, -L and -P and\nany previous -follow, but the reference file is only examined once, at the time the command\nline is parsed. If the reference file cannot be examined (for example, the stat(2) system\ncall fails for it), an error message is issued, and find exits with a nonzero status.\n\nA numeric argument n can be specified to tests (like -amin, -mtime, -gid, -inum, -links,", "long": "--version" }, { "name": "-size -uid -used", "content": "+n for greater than n,\n\n-n for less than n,\n\nn for exactly n.\n\nSupported tests:\n\n\n-amin n\nFile was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n minutes ago.\n\n\n-anewer reference\nTime of the last access of the current file is more recent than that of the last data\nmodification of the reference file. If reference is a symbolic link and the -H option\nor the -L option is in effect, then the time of the last data modification of the file\nit points to is always used.\n\n\n-atime n\nFile was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n*24 hours ago. When find fig‐\nures out how many 24-hour periods ago the file was last accessed, any fractional part\nis ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to have been accessed at least two days\nago.\n\n\n-cmin n\nFile's status was last changed less than, more than or exactly n minutes ago.\n\n\n-cnewer reference\nTime of the last status change of the current file is more recent than that of the\nlast data modification of the reference file. If reference is a symbolic link and the\n-H option or the -L option is in effect, then the time of the last data modification\nof the file it points to is always used.\n\n\n-ctime n\nFile's status was last changed less than, more than or exactly n*24 hours ago. See\nthe comments for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation of file\nstatus change times.\n\n\n-empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.\n\n" }, { "name": "-executable", "content": "Matches files which are executable and directories which are searchable (in a file\nname resolution sense) by the current user. This takes into account access control\nlists and other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes\nuse of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID\nmapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client's\nkernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server. Be‐\ncause this test is based only on the result of the access(2) system call, there is no\nguarantee that a file for which this test succeeds can actually be executed.\n\n\n-false Always false.\n\n\n-fstype type\nFile is on a filesystem of type type. The valid filesystem types vary among different\nversions of Unix; an incomplete list of filesystem types that are accepted on some\nversion of Unix or another is: ufs, 4.2, 4.3, nfs, tmp, mfs, S51K, S52K. You can use\n-printf with the %F directive to see the types of your filesystems.\n\n\n-gid n File's numeric group ID is less than, more than or exactly n.\n\n\n-group gname\nFile belongs to group gname (numeric group ID allowed).\n\n\n-ilname pattern\nLike -lname, but the match is case insensitive. If the -L option or the -follow op‐\ntion is in effect, this test returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.\n\n\n\n-iname pattern\nLike -name, but the match is case insensitive. For example, the patterns `fo*' and\n`F??' match the file names `Foo', `FOO', `foo', `fOo', etc. The pattern `*foo*` will\nalso match a file called '.foobar'.\n\n\n-inum n\nFile has inode number smaller than, greater than or exactly n. It is normally easier\nto use the -samefile test instead.\n\n\n-ipath pattern\nLike -path. but the match is case insensitive.\n\n\n-iregex pattern\nLike -regex, but the match is case insensitive.\n\n\n-iwholename pattern\nSee -ipath. This alternative is less portable than -ipath.\n\n\n-links n\nFile has less than, more than or exactly n hard links.\n\n\n-lname pattern\nFile is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pattern. The metacharac‐\nters do not treat `/' or `.' specially. If the -L option or the -follow option is in\neffect, this test returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.\n\n\n-mmin n\nFile's data was last modified less than, more than or exactly n minutes ago.\n\n\n-mtime n\nFile's data was last modified less than, more than or exactly n*24 hours ago. See the\ncomments for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation of file mod‐\nification times.\n\n\n-name pattern\nBase of file name (the path with the leading directories removed) matches shell pat‐\ntern pattern. Because the leading directories are removed, the file names considered\nfor a match with -name will never include a slash, so `-name a/b' will never match\nanything (you probably need to use -path instead). A warning is issued if you try to\ndo this, unless the environment variable POSIXLYCORRECT is set. The metacharacters\n(`*', `?', and `[]') match a `.' at the start of the base name (this is a change in\nfindutils-4.2.2; see section STANDARDS CONFORMANCE below). To ignore a directory and\nthe files under it, use -prune rather than checking every file in the tree; see an ex‐\nample in the description of that action. Braces are not recognised as being special,\ndespite the fact that some shells including Bash imbue braces with a special meaning\nin shell patterns. The filename matching is performed with the use of the fnmatch(3)\nlibrary function. Don't forget to enclose the pattern in quotes in order to protect\nit from expansion by the shell.\n\n\n-newer reference\nTime of the last data modification of the current file is more recent than that of the\nlast data modification of the reference file. If reference is a symbolic link and the\n-H option or the -L option is in effect, then the time of the last data modification\nof the file it points to is always used.\n\n\n-newerXY reference\nSucceeds if timestamp X of the file being considered is newer than timestamp Y of the\nfile reference. The letters X and Y can be any of the following letters:\n\na The access time of the file reference\nB The birth time of the file reference\nc The inode status change time of reference\nm The modification time of the file reference\nt reference is interpreted directly as a time\n\nSome combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for X to be t. Some combi‐\nnations are not implemented on all systems; for example B is not supported on all sys‐\ntems. If an invalid or unsupported combination of XY is specified, a fatal error re‐\nsults. Time specifications are interpreted as for the argument to the -d option of\nGNU date. If you try to use the birth time of a reference file, and the birth time\ncannot be determined, a fatal error message results. If you specify a test which\nrefers to the birth time of files being examined, this test will fail for any files\nwhere the birth time is unknown.\n\n" }, { "name": "-nogroup", "content": "No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.\n\n" }, { "name": "-nouser", "content": "No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.\n\n\n-path pattern\nFile name matches shell pattern pattern. The metacharacters do not treat `/' or `.'\nspecially; so, for example,\nfind . -path \"./sr*sc\"\nwill print an entry for a directory called ./src/misc (if one exists). To ignore a\nwhole directory tree, use -prune rather than checking every file in the tree. Note\nthat the pattern match test applies to the whole file name, starting from one of the\nstart points named on the command line. It would only make sense to use an absolute\npath name here if the relevant start point is also an absolute path. This means that\nthis command will never match anything:\nfind bar -path /foo/bar/myfile -print\nFind compares the -path argument with the concatenation of a directory name and the\nbase name of the file it's examining. Since the concatenation will never end with a\nslash, -path arguments ending in a slash will match nothing (except perhaps a start\npoint specified on the command line). The predicate -path is also supported by HP-UX\nfind and is part of the POSIX 2008 standard.\n\n\n-perm mode\nFile's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic). Since an exact match is\nrequired, if you want to use this form for symbolic modes, you may have to specify a\nrather complex mode string. For example `-perm g=w' will only match files which have\nmode 0020 (that is, ones for which group write permission is the only permission set).\nIt is more likely that you will want to use the `/' or `-' forms, for example `-perm\n-g=w', which matches any file with group write permission. See the EXAMPLES section\nfor some illustrative examples.\n\n\n-perm -mode\nAll of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic modes are accepted in\nthis form, and this is usually the way in which you would want to use them. You must\nspecify `u', `g' or `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for some\nillustrative examples.\n\n\n-perm /mode\nAny of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic modes are accepted in\nthis form. You must specify `u', `g' or `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EX‐\nAMPLES section for some illustrative examples. If no permission bits in mode are set,\nthis test matches any file (the idea here is to be consistent with the behaviour of\n-perm -000).\n\n\n-perm +mode\nThis is no longer supported (and has been deprecated since 2005). Use -perm /mode in‐\nstead.\n\n" }, { "name": "-readable", "content": "Matches files which are readable by the current user. This takes into account access\ncontrol lists and other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test\nmakes use of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do\nUID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the\nclient's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the\nserver.\n\n\n-regex pattern\nFile name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match on the whole path, not\na search. For example, to match a file named ./fubar3, you can use the regular ex‐\npression `.*bar.' or `.*b.*3', but not `f.*r3'. The regular expressions understood by\nfind are by default Emacs Regular Expressions (except that `.' matches newline), but\nthis can be changed with the -regextype option.\n\n\n-samefile name\nFile refers to the same inode as name. When -L is in effect, this can include sym‐\nbolic links.\n\n\n-size n[cwbkMG]\nFile uses less than, more than or exactly n units of space, rounding up. The follow‐\ning suffixes can be used:\n\n`b' for 512-byte blocks (this is the default if no suffix is used)\n\n`c' for bytes\n\n`w' for two-byte words\n\n`k' for kibibytes (KiB, units of 1024 bytes)\n\n`M' for mebibytes (MiB, units of 1024 * 1024 = 1048576 bytes)\n\n`G' for gibibytes (GiB, units of 1024 * 1024 * 1024 = 1073741824 bytes)\n\nThe size is simply the stsize member of the struct stat populated by the lstat (or\nstat) system call, rounded up as shown above. In other words, it's consistent with\nthe result you get for ls -l. Bear in mind that the `%k' and `%b' format specifiers\nof -printf handle sparse files differently. The `b' suffix always denotes 512-byte\nblocks and never 1024-byte blocks, which is different to the behaviour of -ls.\n\nThe + and - prefixes signify greater than and less than, as usual; i.e., an exact size\nof n units does not match. Bear in mind that the size is rounded up to the next unit.\nTherefore -size -1M is not equivalent to -size -1048576c. The former only matches\nempty files, the latter matches files from 0 to 1,048,575 bytes.\n\n-true Always true.\n\n\n-type c\nFile is of type c:\n\nb block (buffered) special\n\nc character (unbuffered) special\n\nd directory\n\np named pipe (FIFO)\n\nf regular file\n\nl symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the -follow option is in\neffect, unless the symbolic link is broken. If you want to search for symbolic\nlinks when -L is in effect, use -xtype.\n\ns socket\n\nD door (Solaris)\n\nTo search for more than one type at once, you can supply the combined list of type\nletters separated by a comma `,' (GNU extension).\n\n-uid n File's numeric user ID is less than, more than or exactly n.\n\n\n-used n\nFile was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n days after its status was\nlast changed.\n\n\n-user uname\nFile is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).\n\n\n-wholename pattern\nSee -path. This alternative is less portable than -path.\n\n" }, { "name": "-writable", "content": "Matches files which are writable by the current user. This takes into account access\ncontrol lists and other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test\nmakes use of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do\nUID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the\nclient's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the\nserver.\n\n\n-xtype c\nThe same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link. For symbolic links: if the -H\nor -P option was specified, true if the file is a link to a file of type c; if the -L\noption has been given, true if c is `l'. In other words, for symbolic links, -xtype\nchecks the type of the file that -type does not check.\n\n-context pattern\n(SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pattern.\n\n\nACTIONS" }, { "name": "-delete", "content": "Delete files or directories; true if removal succeeded. If the removal failed, an er‐\nror message is issued and find's exit status will be nonzero (when it eventually ex‐\nits).\n\nWarning: Don't forget that find evaluates the command line as an expression, so\nputting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting\npoints you specified.\n\nThe use of the -delete action on the command line automatically turns on the -depth\noption. As in turn -depth makes -prune ineffective, the -delete action cannot use‐\nfully be combined with -prune.\n\nOften, the user might want to test a find command line with -print prior to adding\n-delete for the actual removal run. To avoid surprising results, it is usually best\nto remember to use -depth explicitly during those earlier test runs.\n\nThe -delete action will fail to remove a directory unless it is empty.\n\nTogether with the -ignorereaddirrace option, find will ignore errors of the -delete\naction in the case the file has disappeared since the parent directory was read: it\nwill not output an error diagnostic, not change the exit code to nonzero, and the re‐\nturn code of the -delete action will be true.\n\n\n\n-exec command ;\nExecute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following arguments to find are\ntaken to be arguments to the command until an argument consisting of `;' is encoun‐\ntered. The string `{}' is replaced by the current file name being processed every‐\nwhere it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments where it is\nalone, as in some versions of find. Both of these constructions might need to be es‐\ncaped (with a `\\') or quoted to protect them from expansion by the shell. See the EX‐\nAMPLES section for examples of the use of the -exec option. The specified command is\nrun once for each matched file. The command is executed in the starting directory.\nThere are unavoidable security problems surrounding use of the -exec action; you\nshould use the -execdir option instead.\n\n\n-exec command {} +\nThis variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected files, but\nthe command line is built by appending each selected file name at the end; the total\nnumber of invocations of the command will be much less than the number of matched\nfiles. The command line is built in much the same way that xargs builds its command\nlines. Only one instance of `{}' is allowed within the command, and it must appear at\nthe end, immediately before the `+'; it needs to be escaped (with a `\\') or quoted to\nprotect it from interpretation by the shell. The command is executed in the starting\ndirectory. If any invocation with the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit sta‐\ntus, then find returns a non-zero exit status. If find encounters an error, this can\nsometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may not be run at all.\nFor this reason -exec my-command ... {} + -quit may not result in my-command actually\nbeing run. This variant of -exec always returns true.\n\n\n-execdir command ;\n\n-execdir command {} +\nLike -exec, but the specified command is run from the subdirectory containing the\nmatched file, which is not normally the directory in which you started find. As with\n-exec, the {} should be quoted if find is being invoked from a shell. This a much\nmore secure method for invoking commands, as it avoids race conditions during resolu‐\ntion of the paths to the matched files. As with the -exec action, the `+' form of\n-execdir will build a command line to process more than one matched file, but any\ngiven invocation of command will only list files that exist in the same subdirectory.\nIf you use this option, you must ensure that your PATH environment variable does not\nreference `.'; otherwise, an attacker can run any commands they like by leaving an ap‐\npropriately-named file in a directory in which you will run -execdir. The same ap‐\nplies to having entries in PATH which are empty or which are not absolute directory\nnames. If any invocation with the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit status,\nthen find returns a non-zero exit status. If find encounters an error, this can some‐\ntimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may not be run at all. The\nresult of the action depends on whether the + or the ; variant is being used; -ex‐\necdir command {} + always returns true, while -execdir command {} ; returns true only\nif command returns 0.\n\n\n\n-fls file\nTrue; like -ls but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created,\neven if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for infor‐\nmation about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.\n\n\n-fprint file\nTrue; print the full file name into file file. If file does not exist when find is\nrun, it is created; if it does exist, it is truncated. The file names /dev/stdout and\n/dev/stderr are handled specially; they refer to the standard output and standard er‐\nror output, respectively. The output file is always created, even if the predicate is\nnever matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual\ncharacters in filenames are handled.\n\n\n-fprint0 file\nTrue; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created,\neven if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for infor‐\nmation about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.\n\n\n-fprintf file format\nTrue; like -printf but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created,\neven if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for infor‐\nmation about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.\n\n\n-ls True; list current file in ls -dils format on standard output. The block counts are\nof 1 KB blocks, unless the environment variable POSIXLYCORRECT is set, in which case\n512-byte blocks are used. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how\nunusual characters in filenames are handled.\n\n\n-ok command ;\nLike -exec but ask the user first. If the user agrees, run the command. Otherwise\njust return false. If the command is run, its standard input is redirected from\n/dev/null. This action may not be specified together with the -files0-from option.\n\n\nThe response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular expressions to deter‐\nmine if it is an affirmative or negative response. This regular expression is ob‐\ntained from the system if the POSIXLYCORRECT environment variable is set, or other‐\nwise from find's message translations. If the system has no suitable definition,\nfind's own definition will be used. In either case, the interpretation of the regular\nexpression itself will be affected by the environment variables LCCTYPE (character\nclasses) and LCCOLLATE (character ranges and equivalence classes).\n\n\n\n\n-okdir command ;\nLike -execdir but ask the user first in the same way as for -ok. If the user does not\nagree, just return false. If the command is run, its standard input is redirected\nfrom /dev/null. This action may not be specified together with the -files0-from op‐\ntion.\n\n\n\n-print True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a newline. If you\nare piping the output of find into another program and there is the faintest possibil‐\nity that the files which you are searching for might contain a newline, then you\nshould seriously consider using the -print0 option instead of -print. See the UNUSUAL\nFILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are han‐\ndled.\n\n" }, { "name": "-print0", "content": "True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character\n(instead of the newline character that -print uses). This allows file names that con‐\ntain newlines or other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by programs\nthat process the find output. This option corresponds to the -0 option of xargs.\n\n\n-printf format\nTrue; print format on the standard output, interpreting `\\' escapes and `%' direc‐\ntives. Field widths and precisions can be specified as with the printf(3) C function.\nPlease note that many of the fields are printed as %s rather than %d, and this may\nmean that flags don't work as you might expect. This also means that the `-' flag\ndoes work (it forces fields to be left-aligned). Unlike -print, -printf does not add\na newline at the end of the string. The escapes and directives are:\n\n\\a Alarm bell.\n\n\\b Backspace.\n\n\\c Stop printing from this format immediately and flush the output.\n\n\\f Form feed.\n\n\\n Newline.\n\n\\r Carriage return.\n\n\\t Horizontal tab.\n\n\\v Vertical tab.\n\n\\0 ASCII NUL.\n\n\\\\ A literal backslash (`\\').\n\n\\NNN The character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal).\n\nA `\\' character followed by any other character is treated as an ordinary character,\nso they both are printed.\n\n%% A literal percent sign.\n\n%a File's last access time in the format returned by the C ctime(3) function.\n\n%Ak File's last access time in the format specified by k, which is either `@' or a\ndirective for the C strftime(3) function. The following shows an incomplete\nlist of possible values for k. Please refer to the documentation of strf‐\ntime(3) for the full list. Some of the conversion specification characters\nmight not be available on all systems, due to differences in the implementation\nof the strftime(3) library function.\n\n@ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with fractional part.\n\nTime fields:\n\nH hour (00..23)\n\nI hour (01..12)\n\nk hour ( 0..23)\n\nl hour ( 1..12)\n\nM minute (00..59)\n\np locale's AM or PM\n\nr time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)\n\nS Second (00.00 .. 61.00). There is a fractional part.\n\nT time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss.xxxxxxxxxx)\n\n+ Date and time, separated by `+', for example `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'.\nThis is a GNU extension. The time is given in the current timezone\n(which may be affected by setting the TZ environment variable). The\nseconds field includes a fractional part.\n\nX locale's time representation (H:M:S). The seconds field includes a\nfractional part.\n\nZ time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable\n\nDate fields:\n\na locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)\n\nA locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)\n\nb locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)\n\nB locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)\n\nc locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989). The format is\nthe same as for ctime(3) and so to preserve compatibility with that for‐\nmat, there is no fractional part in the seconds field.\n\nd day of month (01..31)\n\nD date (mm/dd/yy)\n\nF date (yyyy-mm-dd)\n\nh same as b\n\nj day of year (001..366)\n\nm month (01..12)\n\nU week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)\n\nw day of week (0..6)\n\nW week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)\n\nx locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)\n\ny last two digits of year (00..99)\n\nY year (1970...)\n\n%b The amount of disk space used for this file in 512-byte blocks. Since disk\nspace is allocated in multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually\ngreater than %s/512, but it can also be smaller if the file is a sparse file.\n\n\n%Bk File's birth time, i.e., its creation time, in the format specified by k, which\nis the same as for %A. This directive produces an empty string if the underly‐\ning operating system or filesystem does not support birth times.\n\n\n%c File's last status change time in the format returned by the C ctime(3) func‐\ntion.\n\n%Ck File's last status change time in the format specified by k, which is the same\nas for %A.\n\n%d File's depth in the directory tree; 0 means the file is a starting-point.\n\n%D The device number on which the file exists (the stdev field of struct stat),\nin decimal.\n\n%f Print the basename; the file's name with any leading directories removed (only\nthe last element). For /, the result is `/'. See the EXAMPLES section for an\nexample.\n\n\n%F Type of the filesystem the file is on; this value can be used for -fstype.\n\n%g File's group name, or numeric group ID if the group has no name.\n\n%G File's numeric group ID.\n\n%h Dirname; the Leading directories of the file's name (all but the last element).\nIf the file name contains no slashes (since it is in the current directory) the\n%h specifier expands to `.'. For files which are themselves directories and\ncontain a slash (including /), %h expands to the empty string. See the EXAM‐\nPLES section for an example.\n\n%H Starting-point under which file was found.\n\n%i File's inode number (in decimal).\n\n%k The amount of disk space used for this file in 1 KB blocks. Since disk space\nis allocated in multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually greater\nthan %s/1024, but it can also be smaller if the file is a sparse file.\n\n%l Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a symbolic link).\n\n%m File's permission bits (in octal). This option uses the `traditional' numbers\nwhich most Unix implementations use, but if your particular implementation uses\nan unusual ordering of octal permissions bits, you will see a difference be‐\ntween the actual value of the file's mode and the output of %m. Normally you\nwill want to have a leading zero on this number, and to do this, you should use\nthe # flag (as in, for example, `%#m').\n\n%M File's permissions (in symbolic form, as for ls). This directive is supported\nin findutils 4.2.5 and later.\n\n%n Number of hard links to file.\n\n%p File's name.\n\n%P File's name with the name of the starting-point under which it was found re‐\nmoved.\n\n%s File's size in bytes.\n\n%S File's sparseness. This is calculated as (BLOCKSIZE*stblocks / stsize). The\nexact value you will get for an ordinary file of a certain length is system-de‐\npendent. However, normally sparse files will have values less than 1.0, and\nfiles which use indirect blocks may have a value which is greater than 1.0. In\ngeneral the number of blocks used by a file is file system dependent. The\nvalue used for BLOCKSIZE is system-dependent, but is usually 512 bytes. If the\nfile size is zero, the value printed is undefined. On systems which lack sup‐\nport for stblocks, a file's sparseness is assumed to be 1.0.\n\n%t File's last modification time in the format returned by the C ctime(3) func‐\ntion.\n\n%Tk File's last modification time in the format specified by k, which is the same\nas for %A.\n\n%u File's user name, or numeric user ID if the user has no name.\n\n%U File's numeric user ID.\n\n%y File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't happen)\n\n%Y File's type (like %y), plus follow symbolic links: `L'=loop, `N'=nonexistent,\n`?' for any other error when determining the type of the target of a symbolic\nlink.\n\n%Z (SELinux only) file's security context.\n\n%{ %[ %(\nReserved for future use.\n\nA `%' character followed by any other character is discarded, but the other character\nis printed (don't rely on this, as further format characters may be introduced). A\n`%' at the end of the format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no\nfollowing character. In some locales, it may hide your door keys, while in others it\nmay remove the final page from the novel you are reading.\n\nThe %m and %d directives support the #, 0 and + flags, but the other directives do\nnot, even if they print numbers. Numeric directives that do not support these flags\ninclude G, U, b, D, k and n. The `-' format flag is supported and changes the align‐\nment of a field from right-justified (which is the default) to left-justified.\n\nSee the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in\nfilenames are handled.\n\n\n\n-prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it. If -depth is given, then\n-prune has no effect. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune\nand -delete together. For example, to skip the directory src/emacs and all files and\ndirectories under it, and print the names of the other files found, do something like\nthis:\nfind . -path ./src/emacs -prune -o -print\n\n\n\n-quit Exit immediately (with return value zero if no errors have occurred). This is differ‐\nent to -prune because -prune only applies to the contents of pruned directories, while\n-quit simply makes find stop immediately. No child processes will be left running.\nAny command lines which have been built by -exec ... + or -execdir ... + are invoked\nbefore the program is exited. After -quit is executed, no more files specified on the\ncommand line will be processed. For example, `find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit`\nwill print only `/tmp/foo`.\nOne common use of -quit is to stop searching the file system once we have found what\nwe want. For example, if we want to find just a single file we can do this:\nfind / -name needle -print -quit\n\n\nOPERATORS\nListed in order of decreasing precedence:\n\n\n( expr )\nForce precedence. Since parentheses are special to the shell, you will normally need\nto quote them. Many of the examples in this manual page use backslashes for this pur‐\npose: `\\(...\\)' instead of `(...)'.\n\n\n! expr True if expr is false. This character will also usually need protection from inter‐\npretation by the shell.\n\n\n-not expr\nSame as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.\n\n\nexpr1 expr2\nTwo expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied -a; expr2 is not eval‐\nuated if expr1 is false.\n\n\nexpr1 -a expr2\nSame as expr1 expr2.\n\n\nexpr1 -and expr2\nSame as expr1 expr2, but not POSIX compliant.\n\n\nexpr1 -o expr2\nOr; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.\n\n\nexpr1 -or expr2\nSame as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.\n\n\nexpr1 , expr2\nList; both expr1 and expr2 are always evaluated. The value of expr1 is discarded; the\nvalue of the list is the value of expr2. The comma operator can be useful for search‐\ning for several different types of thing, but traversing the filesystem hierarchy only\nonce. The -fprintf action can be used to list the various matched items into several\ndifferent output files.\n\nPlease note that -a when specified implicitly (for example by two tests appearing without an\nexplicit operator between them) or explicitly has higher precedence than -o. This means that\nfind . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print afile.\n" } ] }, "UNUSUAL FILENAMES": { "content": "Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is under the control of\nother users. This includes file names, sizes, modification times and so forth. File names\nare a potential problem since they can contain any character except `\\0' and `/'. Unusual\ncharacters in file names can do unexpected and often undesirable things to your terminal (for\nexample, changing the settings of your function keys on some terminals). Unusual characters\nare handled differently by various actions, as described below.\n\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "-print0, -fprint0", "content": "Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output is going to a terminal.\n\n" }, { "name": "-ls, -fls", "content": "Unusual characters are always escaped. White space, backslash, and double quote char‐\nacters are printed using C-style escaping (for example `\\f', `\\\"'). Other unusual\ncharacters are printed using an octal escape. Other printable characters (for -ls and\n-fls these are the characters between octal 041 and 0176) are printed as-is.\n\n" }, { "name": "-printf, -fprintf", "content": "If the output is not going to a terminal, it is printed as-is. Otherwise, the result\ndepends on which directive is in use. The directives %D, %F, %g, %G, %H, %Y, and %y\nexpand to values which are not under control of files' owners, and so are printed as-\nis. The directives %a, %b, %c, %d, %i, %k, %m, %M, %n, %s, %t, %u and %U have values\nwhich are under the control of files' owners but which cannot be used to send arbi‐\ntrary data to the terminal, and so these are printed as-is. The directives %f, %h,\n%l, %p and %P are quoted. This quoting is performed in the same way as for GNU ls.\nThis is not the same quoting mechanism as the one used for -ls and -fls. If you are\nable to decide what format to use for the output of find then it is normally better to\nuse `\\0' as a terminator than to use newline, as file names can contain white space\nand newline characters. The setting of the LCCTYPE environment variable is used to\ndetermine which characters need to be quoted.\n\n" }, { "name": "-print, -fprint", "content": "Quoting is handled in the same way as for -printf and -fprintf. If you are using find\nin a script or in a situation where the matched files might have arbitrary names, you\nshould consider using -print0 instead of -print.\n\nThe -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is. This may change in a future re‐\nlease.\n" } ] }, "STANDARDS CONFORMANCE": { "content": "For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the POSIXLYCORRECT environment\nvariable. The following options are specified in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1-2008,\n2016 Edition):\n\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "-H", "content": "", "flag": "-H" }, { "name": "-L", "content": "", "flag": "-L" }, { "name": "-name", "content": "the system's fnmatch(3) library function. As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters\n(`*', `?' or `[]' for example) match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC interpretation\n126 requires this. This is a change from previous versions of findutils.\n\n" }, { "name": "-type", "content": "ports `D', representing a Door, where the OS provides these. Furthermore, GNU find\nallows multiple types to be specified at once in a comma-separated list.\n\n" }, { "name": "-ok", "content": "selected by setting the LCMESSAGES environment variable. When the POSIXLYCORRECT\nenvironment variable is set, these patterns are taken system's definition of a posi‐\ntive (yes) or negative (no) response. See the system's documentation for nllang‐\ninfo(3), in particular YESEXPR and NOEXPR. When POSIXLYCORRECT is not set, the pat‐\nterns are instead taken from find's own message catalogue.\n\n" }, { "name": "-newer", "content": "is a change from previous behaviour, which used to take the relevant time from the\nsymbolic link; see the HISTORY section below.\n\n" }, { "name": "-perm", "content": "ments (for example +a+x) which are not valid in POSIX are supported for backward-com‐\npatibility.\n\n\nOther primaries\nThe primaries -atime, -ctime, -depth, -exec, -group, -links, -mtime, -nogroup,\n-nouser, -ok, -path, -print, -prune, -size, -user and -xdev are all supported.\n\n\nThe POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the logical AND/OR opera‐\ntors -a and -o.\n\nAll other options, predicates, expressions and so forth are extensions beyond the POSIX stan‐\ndard. Many of these extensions are not unique to GNU find, however.\n\nThe POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:\n\nThe find utility shall detect infinite loops; that is, entering a previously visited\ndirectory that is an ancestor of the last file encountered. When it detects an infi‐\nnite loop, find shall write a diagnostic message to standard error and shall either\nrecover its position in the hierarchy or terminate.\n\nGNU find complies with these requirements. The link count of directories which contain en‐\ntries which are hard links to an ancestor will often be lower than they otherwise should be.\nThis can mean that GNU find will sometimes optimise away the visiting of a subdirectory which\nis actually a link to an ancestor. Since find does not actually enter such a subdirectory,\nit is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic message. Although this behaviour may be some‐\nwhat confusing, it is unlikely that anybody actually depends on this behaviour. If the leaf\noptimisation has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry will always be examined\nand the diagnostic message will be issued where it is appropriate. Symbolic links cannot be\nused to create filesystem cycles as such, but if the -L option or the -follow option is in\nuse, a diagnostic message is issued when find encounters a loop of symbolic links. As with\nloops containing hard links, the leaf optimisation will often mean that find knows that it\ndoesn't need to call stat() or chdir() on the symbolic link, so this diagnostic is frequently\nnot necessary.\n\nThe -d option is supported for compatibility with various BSD systems, but you should use the\nPOSIX-compliant option -depth instead.\n\nThe POSIXLYCORRECT environment variable does not affect the behaviour of the -regex or" }, { "name": "-iregex", "content": "" } ] }, "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES": { "content": "LANG Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or\nnull.\n\n\nLCALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internation‐\nalization variables.\n\n\nLCCOLLATE\nThe POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pattern matching to be\nused for the -name option. GNU find uses the fnmatch(3) library function, and so sup‐\nport for LCCOLLATE depends on the system library. This variable also affects the in‐\nterpretation of the response to -ok; while the LCMESSAGES variable selects the actual\npattern used to interpret the response to -ok, the interpretation of any bracket ex‐\npressions in the pattern will be affected by LCCOLLATE.\n\n\nLCCTYPE\nThis variable affects the treatment of character classes used in regular expressions\nand also with the -name test, if the system's fnmatch(3) library function supports\nthis. This variable also affects the interpretation of any character classes in the\nregular expressions used to interpret the response to the prompt issued by -ok. The\nLCCTYPE environment variable will also affect which characters are considered to be\nunprintable when filenames are printed; see the section UNUSUAL FILENAMES.\n\n\nLCMESSAGES\nDetermines the locale to be used for internationalised messages. If the POSIXLYCOR‐\nRECT environment variable is set, this also determines the interpretation of the re‐\nsponse to the prompt made by the -ok action.\n\n\nNLSPATH\nDetermines the location of the internationalisation message catalogues.\n\n\nPATH Affects the directories which are searched to find the executables invoked by -exec,\n-execdir, -ok and -okdir.\n\n\nPOSIXLYCORRECT\nDetermines the block size used by -ls and -fls. If POSIXLYCORRECT is set, blocks are\nunits of 512 bytes. Otherwise they are units of 1024 bytes.\n\nSetting this variable also turns off warning messages (that is, implies -nowarn) by\ndefault, because POSIX requires that apart from the output for -ok, all messages\nprinted on stderr are diagnostics and must result in a non-zero exit status.\n\nWhen POSIXLYCORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just like -perm /zzz if +zzz is\nnot a valid symbolic mode. When POSIXLYCORRECT is set, such constructs are treated\nas an error.\n\nWhen POSIXLYCORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made by the -ok action is in‐\nterpreted according to the system's message catalogue, as opposed to according to\nfind's own message translations.\n\n\nTZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format directives of -printf\nand -fprintf.\n", "subsections": [] }, "EXAMPLES": { "content": "", "subsections": [ { "name": "Simple `find|xargs` approach", "content": "• Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them.\n\n$ find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f\n\nNote that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines,\nsingle or double quotes, or spaces.\n" }, { "name": "Safer `find -print0 | xargs -0` approach", "content": "• Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing file‐\nnames in such a way that file or directory names containing single or double quotes,\nspaces or newlines are correctly handled.\n\n$ find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f\n\nThe -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid having to call stat(2) on\nevery file.\n\nNote that there is still a race between the time find traverses the hierarchy printing the\nmatching filenames, and the time the process executed by xargs works with that file.\n" }, { "name": "Processing arbitrary starting points", "content": "• Given that another program proggy pre-filters and creates a huge NUL-separated list of\nfiles, process those as starting points, and find all regular, empty files among them:\n\n$ proggy | find -files0-from - -maxdepth 0 -type f -empty\n\nThe use of `-files0-from -` means to read the names of the starting points from stan‐\ndard input, i.e., from the pipe; and -maxdepth 0 ensures that only explicitly those\nentries are examined without recursing into directories (in the case one of the start‐\ning points is one).\n" }, { "name": "Executing a command for each file", "content": "• Run file on every file in or below the current directory.\n\n$ find . -type f -exec file '{}' \\;\n\nNotice that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to protect them from inter‐\npretation as shell script punctuation. The semicolon is similarly protected by the\nuse of a backslash, though single quotes could have been used in that case also.\n\nIn many cases, one might prefer the `-exec ... +` or better the `-execdir ... +` syntax for\nperformance and security reasons.\n" }, { "name": "Traversing the filesystem just once - for 2 different actions", "content": "• Traverse the filesystem just once, listing set-user-ID files and directories into\n/root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.\n\n$ find / \\\n\\( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\\n' \\) , \\\n\\( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\\n' \\)\n\nThis example uses the line-continuation character '\\' on the first two lines to in‐\nstruct the shell to continue reading the command on the next line.\n" }, { "name": "Searching files by age", "content": "• Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-\nfour hours.\n\n$ find $HOME -mtime 0\n\nThis command works this way because the time since each file was last modified is di‐\nvided by 24 hours and any remainder is discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0,\na file will have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.\n" }, { "name": "Searching files by permissions", "content": "• Search for files which are executable but not readable.\n\n$ find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \\! -readable -print\n\n\n• Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner, and group, but\nwhich other users can read but not write to.\n\n$ find . -perm 664\n\nFiles which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits set (for example if\nsomeone can execute the file) will not be matched.\n\n• Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner and group, and\nwhich other users can read, without regard to the presence of any extra permission\nbits (for example the executable bit).\n\n$ find . -perm -664\n\nThis will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.\n\n• Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their group, or any‐\nbody else).\n\n$ find . -perm /222\n\n\n• Search for files which are writable by either their owner or their group.\n\n$ find . -perm /220\n$ find . -perm /u+w,g+w\n$ find . -perm /u=w,g=w\n\nAll three of these commands do the same thing, but the first one uses the octal repre‐\nsentation of the file mode, and the other two use the symbolic form. The files don't\nhave to be writable by both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.\n\n• Search for files which are writable by both their owner and their group.\n\n$ find . -perm -220\n$ find . -perm -g+w,u+w\n\nBoth these commands do the same thing.\n\n• A more elaborate search on permissions.\n\n$ find . -perm -444 -perm /222 \\! -perm /111\n$ find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w \\! -perm /a+x\n\nThese two commands both search for files that are readable for everybody (-perm -444\nor -perm -a+r), have at least one write bit set (-perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not\nexecutable for anybody (! -perm /111 or ! -perm /a+x respectively).\n" }, { "name": "Pruning - omitting files and subdirectories", "content": "• Copy the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omit files and directories named\n.snapshot (and anything in them). It also omits files or directories whose name ends\nin `~', but not their contents.\n\n$ cd /source-dir\n$ find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \\( \\! -name '*~' -print0 \\) \\\n| cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir\n\nThe construct -prune -o \\( ... -print0 \\) is quite common. The idea here is that the\nexpression before -prune matches things which are to be pruned. However, the -prune\naction itself returns true, so the following -o ensures that the right hand side is\nevaluated only for those directories which didn't get pruned (the contents of the\npruned directories are not even visited, so their contents are irrelevant). The ex‐\npression on the right hand side of the -o is in parentheses only for clarity. It em‐\nphasises that the -print0 action takes place only for things that didn't have -prune\napplied to them. Because the default `and' condition between tests binds more tightly\nthan -o, this is the default anyway, but the parentheses help to show what is going\non.\n\n• Given the following directory of projects and their associated SCM administrative di‐\nrectories, perform an efficient search for the projects' roots:\n\n$ find repo/ \\\n\\( -exec test -d '{}/.svn' \\; \\\n-or -exec test -d '{}/.git' \\; \\\n-or -exec test -d '{}/CVS' \\; \\\n\\) -print -prune\n\nSample output:\n\nrepo/project1/CVS\nrepo/gnu/project2/.svn\nrepo/gnu/project3/.svn\nrepo/gnu/project3/src/.svn\nrepo/project4/.git\n\nIn this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into directories that have al‐\nready been discovered (for example we do not search project3/src because we already\nfound project3/.svn), but ensures sibling directories (project2 and project3) are\nfound.\n" }, { "name": "Other useful examples", "content": "• Search for several file types.\n\n$ find /tmp -type f,d,l\n\nSearch for files, directories, and symbolic links in the directory /tmp passing these\ntypes as a comma-separated list (GNU extension), which is otherwise equivalent to the\nlonger, yet more portable:\n\n$ find /tmp \\( -type f -o -type d -o -type l \\)\n\n\n• Search for files with the particular name needle and stop immediately when we find the\nfirst one.\n\n$ find / -name needle -print -quit\n\n\n• Demonstrate the interpretation of the %f and %h format directives of the -printf ac‐\ntion for some corner-cases. Here is an example including some output.\n\n$ find . .. / /tmp /tmp/TRACE compile compile/64/tests/find -maxdepth 0 -printf '[%h][%f]\\n'\n[.][.]\n[.][..]\n[][/]\n[][tmp]\n[/tmp][TRACE]\n[.][compile]\n[compile/64/tests][find]\n\n" } ] }, "EXIT STATUS": { "content": "find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, greater than 0 if errors\noccur. This is deliberately a very broad description, but if the return value is non-zero,\nyou should not rely on the correctness of the results of find.\n\nWhen some error occurs, find may stop immediately, without completing all the actions speci‐\nfied. For example, some starting points may not have been examined or some pending program\ninvocations for -exec ... {} + or -execdir ... {} + may not have been performed.\n", "subsections": [] }, "HISTORY": { "content": "As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for example) used in filename\npatterns match a leading `.', because IEEE POSIX interpretation 126 requires this.\n\nAs of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of none.\n\nNanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.\n\nAs of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to a nonzero value when it\nfails. However, find will not exit immediately. Previously, find's exit status was unaf‐\nfected by the failure of -delete.\nFeature Added in Also occurs in\n-files0-from 4.9.0\n-newerXY 4.3.3 BSD\n-D 4.3.1\n-O 4.3.1\n-readable 4.3.0\n-writable 4.3.0\n-executable 4.3.0\n-regextype 4.2.24\n-exec ... + 4.2.12 POSIX\n-execdir 4.2.12 BSD\n-okdir 4.2.12\n-samefile 4.2.11\n-H 4.2.5 POSIX\n-L 4.2.5 POSIX\n-P 4.2.5 BSD\n-delete 4.2.3\n-quit 4.2.3\n-d 4.2.3 BSD\n-wholename 4.2.0\n-iwholename 4.2.0\n-ignorereaddirrace 4.2.0\n-fls 4.0\n-ilname 3.8\n-iname 3.8\n-ipath 3.8\n-iregex 3.8\n\nThe syntax -perm +MODE was removed in findutils-4.5.12, in favour of -perm /MODE. The +MODE\nsyntax had been deprecated since findutils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.\n", "subsections": [] }, "NON-BUGS": { "content": "", "subsections": [ { "name": "Operator precedence surprises", "content": "The command find . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print afile because this is\nactually equivalent to find . -name afile -o \\( -name bfile -a -print \\). Remember that the\nprecedence of -a is higher than that of -o and when there is no operator specified between\ntests, -a is assumed.\n" }, { "name": "“paths must precede expression” error message", "content": "$ find . -name *.c -print\nfind: paths must precede expression\nfind: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?\n\nThis happens when the shell could expand the pattern *.c to more than one file name existing\nin the current directory, and passing the resulting file names in the command line to find\nlike this:" }, { "name": "find . -name frcode.c locate.c word_io.c -print", "content": "That command is of course not going to work, because the -name predicate allows exactly only\none pattern as argument. Instead of doing things this way, you should enclose the pattern in\nquotes or escape the wildcard, thus allowing find to use the pattern with the wildcard during\nthe search for file name matching instead of file names expanded by the parent shell:\n$ find . -name '*.c' -print\n$ find . -name \\*.c -print\n" } ] }, "BUGS": { "content": "There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX standard specifies for\nfind, which therefore cannot be fixed. For example, the -exec action is inherently insecure,\nand -execdir should be used instead.\n\nThe environment variable LCCOLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.\n", "subsections": [] }, "REPORTING BUGS": { "content": "GNU findutils online help: \nReport any translation bugs to \n\nReport any other issue via the form at the GNU Savannah bug tracker:\n\nGeneral topics about the GNU findutils package are discussed at the bug-findutils mailing\nlist:\n\n", "subsections": [] }, "COPYRIGHT": { "content": "Copyright © 1990-2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or\nlater .\nThis is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to\nthe extent permitted by law.\n", "subsections": [] }, "SEE ALSO": { "content": "chmod(1), locate(1), ls(1), updatedb(1), xargs(1), lstat(2), stat(2), ctime(3) fnmatch(3),\nprintf(3), strftime(3), locatedb(5), regex(7)\n\nFull documentation \nor available locally via: info find\n\nFIND(1)", "subsections": [] } }, "summary": "find - search for files in a directory hierarchy", "flags": [ { "flag": "", "long": null, "arg": null, "description": "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 re‐ ordered 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 be‐ haviour. 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 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 succeed. 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, optimisations that prove to be reliable, robust and effective 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." } ], "examples": [ "• 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.", "• Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing file‐", "names 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 having to call stat(2) on", "every file.", "Note that there is still a race between the time find traverses the hierarchy printing the", "matching filenames, and the time the process executed by xargs works with that file.", "• 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 starting points from stan‐", "dard input, i.e., from the pipe; and -maxdepth 0 ensures that only explicitly those", "entries are examined without recursing into directories (in the case one of the start‐", "ing points is one).", "• 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 protect them from inter‐", "pretation 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 `-execdir ... +` syntax for", "performance and security reasons.", "• 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 in‐", "struct the shell to continue reading the command on the next line.", "• Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-", "four hours.", "$ find $HOME -mtime 0", "This command works this way because the time since each file was last modified is di‐", "vided by 24 hours and any remainder is discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0,", "a file will have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.", "• Search for files which are executable but not readable.", "$ 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 executable 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 any‐", "body 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 repre‐", "sentation 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).", "• 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 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 irrelevant). The ex‐", "pression on the right hand side of the -o is in parentheses only for clarity. It em‐", "phasises 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 di‐", "rectories, 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 directories that have al‐", "ready 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.", "• Search for several file types.", "$ find /tmp -type f,d,l", "Search for files, directories, and symbolic links in the directory /tmp passing these", "types as a comma-separated list (GNU extension), 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 immediately when we find the", "first one.", "$ find / -name needle -print -quit", "• Demonstrate the interpretation of the %f and %h format directives of the -printf ac‐", "tion 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]" ], "see_also": [ { "name": "chmod", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/chmod/1/json" }, { "name": "locate", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locate/1/json" }, { "name": "ls", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ls/1/json" }, { "name": "updatedb", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/updatedb/1/json" }, { "name": "xargs", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/xargs/1/json" }, { "name": "lstat", "section": "2", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/lstat/2/json" }, { "name": "stat", "section": "2", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/stat/2/json" }, { "name": "ctime", "section": "3", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ctime/3/json" }, { "name": "fnmatch", "section": "3", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/fnmatch/3/json" }, { "name": "printf", "section": "3", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/printf/3/json" }, { "name": "strftime", "section": "3", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/strftime/3/json" }, { "name": "locatedb", "section": "5", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/locatedb/5/json" }, { "name": "regex", "section": "7", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/regex/7/json" }, { "name": "FIND", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/FIND/1/json" } ], "tldr": { "source": "official", "description": "Find files or directories under a directory tree, recursively.", "examples": [ { "description": "Find files by extension", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -name '{{*.ext}}'" }, { "description": "Find files matching multiple path/name patterns", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -path '{{*/path/*/*.ext}}' -or -name '{{*pattern*}}'" }, { "description": "Find directories matching a given name, in case-insensitive mode", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -type d -iname '{{*lib*}}'" }, { "description": "Find files matching a given pattern, excluding specific paths", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -name '{{*.py}}' -not -path '{{*/site-packages/*}}'" }, { "description": "Find files matching a given size range, limiting the recursive depth to \"1\"", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -maxdepth 1 -size {{+500k}} -size {{10M}}" }, { "description": "Run a command for each file (use `{}` within the command to access the filename)", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -name '{{*.ext}}' -exec {{wc -l}} {} \\;" }, { "description": "Find all files modified today and pass the results to a single command as arguments", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -daystart -mtime {{1}} -exec {{tar -cvf archive.tar}} {} \\+" }, { "description": "Search for either empty files or directories and delete them verbosely", "command": "find {{path/to/directory}} -type {{f|d}} -empty -delete -print" } ] } }