MirBSD manpage: find(1)
FIND(1) BSD Reference Manual FIND(1)
find - walk a file hierarchy
find [-dHhLXx] [-f path] path ... [expression]
find recursively descends the directory tree for each path listed,
evaluating an expression (composed of the "primaries" and "operands"
listed below) in terms of each file in the tree. In the absence of an ex-
pression, -print is assumed.
The options are as follows:
-d Causes find to visit directories in post-order i.e. all entries
in a directory will be acted on before the directory itself. By
default, find visits directories in pre-order i.e. before their
contents.
-f path
Specifies a file hierarchy for find to traverse. File hierarchies
may also be specified as the operands immediately following the
options.
-H Causes the file information and file type (see stat(2)) returned
for each symbolic link encountered 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.
-h An alias for the -L option. This option exists for backwards com-
patibility.
-L Causes the file information and file type (see 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.
-X Permit find to be safely used in conjunction with xargs(1). If a
file name contains any of the delimiting characters used by
xargs, a diagnostic message is displayed on standard error, and
the file is skipped. The delimiting characters include single
(''') and double ('"') quotes, backslash ('\'), space, tab, and
newline ('\n') characters. Alternatively, the -print0 primary may
be used in conjunction with the -0 option to xargs(1), allowing
all file names to be processed safely.
-x Prevents find from descending into directories that have a device
number different than that of the file from which the descent be-
gan.
-amin n
True if the difference between the file last access time and the
time find was started, rounded up to the next full minute, is n
minutes.
-anewer file
True if the current file has a more recent last access time than
file.
-atime n
True if the difference between the file last access time and the
time find was started, rounded up to the next full 24-hour
period, is n 24-hour periods.
-cmin n
True if the difference between the time of last change of file
status information and the time find was started, rounded up to
the next full minute, is n minutes.
-cnewer file
True if the current file has a more recent last change time than
file.
-ctime n
True if the difference between the time of last change of file
status information and the time find was started, rounded up to
the next full 24-hour period, is n 24-hour periods.
-empty True if the current file or directory is empty.
-exec utility [argument ...];
True if the program named utility returns a zero value as its
exit status. Optional arguments may be passed to the utility. The
expression must be terminated by a semicolon (';'). If the string
"{}" appears anywhere in the utility name or the arguments it is
replaced by the pathname of the current file. utility will be ex-
ecuted from the directory from which find was executed.
-execdir utility [argument ...];
Identical to the -exec primary with the exception that utility
will be executed from the directory that holds the current file.
The filename substituted for the string "{}" is not qualified.
-flags [-]flags
The flags are comma-separated symbolic file flags (see chflags(1)
for a list of valid flag names). If the flags are preceded by a
dash ('-'), this primary evaluates to true if the file in ques-
tion has at least one of the file flags specified by flags. If
the flags are not preceded by a dash, this primary evaluates to
true if the flags specified exactly match those of the file.
-follow
Follow symbolic links.
-fstype type
True if the file is contained in a filesystem of type type. Two
special filesystem types are recognized: "local" and "rdonly".
These do not describe actual filesystem types; the former matches
any filesystem physically mounted on the system where find is be-
ing executed whereas the latter matches any filesystem which is
mounted read-only.
-group gname
True if the file belongs to the group gname. If gname is numeric
and there is no such group name, then gname is treated as a group
ID.
-iname pattern
True if the last component of the pathname being examined matches
pattern. Case insensitive.
-inum n
True if the file has inode number n.
-links n
True if the file has n links.
-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 "->". The format is
identical to that produced by "ls -dgils".
-maxdepth n
True if the current search depth is less than or equal to what is
specified in n.
-mindepth n
True if the current search depth is at least what is specified in
n.
-mmin n
True if the difference between the file last modification time
and the time find was started, rounded up to the next full
minute, is n minutes.
-mtime n
True if the difference between the file last modification time
and the time find was started, rounded up to the next full 24-
hour period, is n 24-hour periods.
-name pattern
True if the last component of the pathname being examined matches
pattern. Special shell pattern matching characters ('[', ']',
'*', and '?') may be used as part of pattern. These characters
may be matched explicitly by escaping them with a backslash
('\').
-newer file
True if the current file has a more recent last modification time
than file.
-nogroup
True if the file belongs to an unknown group.
-nouser
True if the file belongs to an unknown user.
-ok utility [argument ...];
Identical to the -exec primary with the exception that find re-
quests user affirmation for the execution of utility by printing
a message to the terminal and reading a response. If the response
is other than 'y' the command is not executed and the value of
the ok expression is false.
-path pattern
True if the pathname being examined matches pattern. Special
shell pattern matching characters ('[', ']', '*', and '?') may be
used as part of pattern. These characters may be matched expli-
citly by escaping them with a backslash ('\'). Slashes ('/') are
treated as normal characters and do not have to be matched expli-
citly.
-perm [-]mode
The mode may be either symbolic (see chmod(1)) or an octal
number. If the mode is symbolic, a starting value of zero is as-
sumed and the mode sets or clears permissions without regard to
the process's file mode creation mask. If the mode is octal, only
bits 07777 (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 ('-'), 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 not preceded by a dash, 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.
-print This primary always evaluates to true. It prints the pathname of
the current file to standard output, followed by a newline ('\n')
character. If neither -exec, -ls, -ok, nor -print0 is specified,
the given expression shall be effectively replaced by (given
expression) -print.
-print0
This primary always evaluates to true. It prints the pathname of
the current file to standard output, followed by a null charac-
ter.
-prune This primary always evaluates to true. It causes find to not des-
cend into the current file. Note, the -prune primary has no ef-
fect if the -d option was specified.
-size n[c]
True if the file's size, rounded up, in 512-byte blocks is n. If
n is followed by a 'c', then the primary is true if the file's
size is n bytes.
-type t
True if the file is of the specified type. Possible file types
are as follows:
b block special
c character special
d directory
f regular file
l symbolic link
p FIFO
s socket
-user uname
True if the file belongs to the user uname. If uname is numeric
and there is no such user name, then uname is treated as a user
ID.
All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be pre-
ceded by a plus sign ('+') or a minus sign ('-'). A preceding plus sign
means "more than n", a preceding minus sign means "less than n", and nei-
ther means "exactly n".
The primaries may be combined using the following operators. The opera-
tors are listed in order of decreasing precedence.
(expression) This evaluates to true if the parenthesized expression
evaluates to true.
!expression This is the unary NOT operator. It evaluates to true if the
expression is false.
expression -and expression
expression expression
The -and operator is the logical AND operator. As it is im-
plied 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.
expression -or expression
The -or operator is the logical OR operator. The expression
evaluates to true if either the first or the second expres-
sion is true. The second expression is not evaluated if the
first expression is true.
All operands and primaries must be separate arguments to find. Primaries
which themselves take arguments expect each argument to be a separate ar-
gument to find.
Print out a list of all the files whose names do not end in ".c":
$ find / \! -name '*.c' -print
Print out a list of all the files owned by user "wnj" that are newer than
the file "ttt":
$ find / -newer ttt -user wnj -print
Print out a list of all the files which are not both newer than "ttt" and
owned by "wnj":
$ find / \! \( -newer ttt -user wnj \) -print
Print out a list of all the files that are either owned by "wnj" or that
are newer than "ttt":
$ find / \( -newer ttt -or -user wnj \) -print
Print out a list of all core files on local filesystems:
$ find / \! -fstype local -prune -or -name '*.core' -print
Find all files in /usr/src ending in a dot and single digit, but skip
directory /usr/src/gnu:
$ find /usr/src -path /usr/src/gnu -prune -or -name \*\.[0-9]
chflags(1), chmod(1), locate(1), whereis(1), which(1), xargs(1), stat(2),
fts(3), getgrent(3), getpwent(3), strmode(3), symlink(7)
The find utility syntax is a superset of the syntax specified by the IEEE
Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2") standard.
The options and primaries -amin, -cmin, -empty, -follow, -fstype, -iname,
-inum, -links, -ls, -mmin, -maxdepth, -mindepth, -execdir, and -print0
are extensions to IEEE Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2"). The -iname option was in-
spired by GNU find.
Historically, the -d, -H, and -x options were implemented using the pri-
maries -depth, -follow, and -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 "-print -o -depth". As -print always evaluates
to true, the standard order of evaluation implies that -depth would never
be evaluated. This is not the case.
The operator -or was implemented as -o, and the operator -and was imple-
mented as -a.
Historic implementations of the -exec and -ok primaries did not replace
the string "{}" 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.
A find command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.
The special characters used by find are also special characters to many
shell programs. In particular, the characters '*', '[', ']', '?', '(',
')', '!', '\', and ';' may have to be escaped from the shell.
As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names
and the expression, it is difficult to specify files named "-xdev" or
"!". These problems are handled by the -f option and the getopt(3) "--"
construct.
MirBSD #10-current December 4, 1999 5