Find

General

• searches for files
• do it as root
• While find looks for files, grep searches files for strings
  • Often the exec command for find is grep
  • general regular expression parser

Syntax

• find [path] [options] [tests] [actions]

Path

• path
  • can use absolute or relative paths
  • can supply multiple paths like this
    • find /var/home

Search in the current directory: use a dot: .

options

• -depth
  • ???
• -follow
  • follow symlinks
• -maxdepths N
  • Search at most N levels of directory when searching
• -mount or -xdev
  • don't search directories on other systems

tests

• each test returns true or false
• find considers each file it finds and applies each test in the order they were defined
• If a tests returns false, find stops considering the file it's on, and moves on
• If a test returns true, find will process the next test or action on the current file
• Theses are some tests
  • -atime N
    • the file was last accessed N days ago
  • -mtime N
    • The file ws last modified N days ago
  • -name pattern
    • the name of the file excluding any path
    • if you use a pattern for the filename, you must use quotes so that the name isn't expanded by the shell, but passed to find
      • This pattern must always be in quotes
  • -type C
    • The file is of a certain type C which could be
      • d for directory
      • f for a regular file
  • -user username
    • file is owned by this user
• tests can be combined with operators
• use parens as needed, but you need to escape them with a backslash
  • \(-newer X -o -name "_*" \)
    • if you use a pattern for the filename, you must use quotes so that the name isn't expanded by the shell, but passed to find

operators

• invert the test
  • short form !
  • long form -not
• both tests must be true
  • short form -a
  • long form -and
• either test must be true
  • short form -o
  • long form -or

Examples

• find / -name blah -print
  • start at root and search for a file named blah and then print out the name of the file
• find / -mount -name blah -print
  • start at root and search for a file named blah and then print out the name of the file, but don't search mounted directories
• find . \( -name "_*" -or -newer blah \) -type f -print
  • above the parens were escped, and the wilcard pattern for the name was in quotes. Finds files in the local directory that start with _ or are newer than the file named blah
• find . -newer blah -type f -exec ls -l {} \;
  • look in the current directory for files newer than blah and long list them

Actions

• -exec command
  • Execute a command
• -ok command
  • like -exec except it prompts for user confirmation of each file on which it will carry out the command before executing it
• -prnt
  • prints out the name of the file
• -ls
  • Performs ls -dils on the current file
• -exec and -ok take subsequent params until terminated with a \;
• magic string
  • the magic string is {}. It's a param for -exec or -ok and it's replaced with the full path to the current file