1 FIND(1) User Commands FIND(1) 2 3 4 5 NAME 6 find - find files 7 8 SYNOPSIS 9 /usr/bin/find [-E] [-H | -L] path... expression 10 11 12 /usr/xpg4/bin/find [-H | -L] path... expression 13 14 15 DESCRIPTION 16 The find utility recursively descends the directory hierarchy for each 17 path seeking files that match a Boolean expression written in the 18 primaries specified below. 19 20 21 find is able to descend to arbitrary depths in a file hierarchy and 22 does not fail due to path length limitations (unless a path operand 23 specified by the application exceeds PATH_MAX requirements). 24 25 26 find detects infinite loops; that is, entering a previously visited 27 directory that is an ancestor of the last file encountered. 28 29 OPTIONS 30 The following options are supported: 31 32 -E 33 Interpret regular expressions followed by -regex and -iregex 34 primaries as extended regular expressions. 35 36 37 -H 38 Causes the file information and file type evaluated for each 39 symbolic link encountered on the command line to be those of the 40 file referenced by the link, and not the link itself. If the 41 referenced file does not exist, the file information and type is 42 for the link itself. File information for all symbolic links not 43 on the command line is that of the link itself. 44 45 46 -L 47 Causes the file information and file type evaluated for each 48 symbolic link to be those of the file referenced by the link, and 49 not the link itself. See NOTES. 50 51 52 53 Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options -H and -L is 54 not considered an error. The last option specified determines the 55 behavior of the utility. 56 57 OPERANDS 58 The following operands are supported: 59 60 path 61 A pathname of a starting point in the directory 62 hierarchy. 63 64 65 expression 66 The first argument that starts with a -, or is a ! or a 67 (, and all subsequent arguments are interpreted as an 68 expression made up of the following primaries and 69 operators. In the descriptions, wherever n is used as a 70 primary argument, it is interpreted as a decimal integer 71 optionally preceded by a plus (+) or minus (-) sign, as 72 follows: 73 74 +n 75 more than n 76 77 78 n 79 exactly n 80 81 82 -n 83 less than n 84 85 86 87 Expressions 88 Valid expressions are: 89 90 -acl 91 True if the file have additional ACLs defined. 92 93 94 -amin n 95 File was last accessed n minutes ago. 96 97 98 -atime n 99 True if the file was accessed n days ago. The access 100 time of directories in path is changed by find itself. 101 102 103 -cmin n 104 File's status was last changed n minutes ago. 105 106 107 -cpio device 108 Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio 109 format (5120-byte records). 110 111 112 -ctime n 113 True if the file's status was changed n days ago. 114 115 116 -depth 117 Always true. Causes descent of the directory hierarchy 118 to be done so that all entries in a directory are 119 acted on before the directory itself. This can be 120 useful when find is used with cpio(1) to transfer 121 files that are contained in directories without write 122 permission. 123 124 125 -exec command 126 True if the executed command returns a zero value as 127 exit status. The end of command must be punctuated by 128 an escaped semicolon (;). A command argument {} is 129 replaced by the current pathname. If the last argument 130 to -exec is {} and you specify + rather than the 131 semicolon (;), the command is invoked fewer times, 132 with {} replaced by groups of pathnames. If any 133 invocation of the command returns a non-zero value as 134 exit status, find returns a non-zero exit status. 135 136 137 -follow 138 Always true and always evaluated no matter where it 139 appears in expression. The behavior is unspecified if 140 -follow is used when the find command is invoked with 141 either the -H or the -L option. Causes symbolic links 142 to be followed. When following symbolic links, find 143 keeps track of the directories visited so that it can 144 detect infinite loops. For example, such a loop would 145 occur if a symbolic link pointed to an ancestor. This 146 expression should not be used with the find-type l 147 expression. See NOTES. 148 149 150 -fstype type 151 True if the filesystem to which the file belongs is of 152 type type. 153 154 155 -group gname 156 True if the file belongs to the group gname. If gname 157 is numeric and there's no such group name, it is taken 158 as a group ID. 159 160 161 -groupacl gname 162 True if the file's ACL contains an entry for the group 163 gname. If gname is numeric and there's no such group 164 name, it is taken as a group ID. 165 166 167 -iname pattern 168 Like -name, but the match is case insensitive. 169 170 171 -inum n 172 True if the file has inode number n. 173 174 175 -ipath pattern 176 Like -path, but the match is case insensitive. 177 178 179 -iregex pattern 180 Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive. 181 182 183 -links n 184 True if the file has n links. 185 186 187 -local 188 True if the file system type is not a remote file 189 system type as defined in the /etc/dfs/fstypes file. 190 nfs is used as the default remote filesystem type if 191 the /etc/dfs/fstypes file is not present. The -local 192 option descends the hierarchy of non-local 193 directories. See EXAMPLES for an example of how to 194 search for local files without descending. 195 196 197 -ls 198 Always true. Prints current pathname together with its 199 associated statistics. These include (respectively): 200 201 o inode number 202 203 o size in kilobytes (1024 bytes) 204 205 o protection mode 206 207 o number of hard links 208 209 o user 210 211 o group 212 213 o size in bytes 214 215 o modification time. 216 If the file is a special file, the size field instead 217 contains the major and minor device numbers. 218 219 If the file is a symbolic link, the pathname of the 220 linked-to file is printed preceded by `->'. The format 221 is identical to that of ls -gilds (see ls(1B)). 222 223 Formatting is done internally, without executing the 224 ls program. 225 226 227 -maxdepth n 228 Always true; descend at most n directory levels below 229 the command line arguments. If any -maxdepth primary 230 is specified, it applies to the entire expression even 231 if it would not normally be evaluated. -maxdepth 0 232 limits the whole search to the command line arguments. 233 234 235 -mindepth n 236 Always true; do not apply any tests or actions at 237 levels less than n. If any -mindepth primary is 238 specified, it applies to the entire expression even if 239 it would not normally be evaluated. -mindepth 1 240 processes all but the command line arguments. 241 242 243 -mmin n 244 File's data was last modified n minutes ago. 245 246 247 -mount 248 Always true. Restricts the search to the file system 249 containing the directory specified. Does not list 250 mount points to other file systems. 251 252 253 -mtime n 254 True if the file's data was modified n days ago. 255 256 257 -name pattern 258 True if pattern matches the basename of the current 259 file name. Normal shell file name generation 260 characters (see sh(1)) can be used. A backslash (\) is 261 used as an escape character within the pattern. The 262 pattern should be escaped or quoted when find is 263 invoked from the shell. 264 265 Unless the character '.' is explicitly specified in 266 the beginning of pattern, a current file name 267 beginning with '.' does not match pattern when using 268 /usr/bin/find. /usr/xpg4/bin/find does not make this 269 distinction; wildcard file name generation characters 270 can match file names beginning with '.'. 271 272 273 -ncpio device 274 Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio 275 -c format (5120 byte records). 276 277 278 -newer file 279 True if the current file has been modified more 280 recently than the argument file. 281 282 283 -nogroup 284 True if the file belongs to non-existing group. 285 286 287 -nouser 288 True if the file belongs to non-existing user. 289 290 291 -ok command 292 Like -exec, except that the generated command line is 293 printed with a question mark first, and is executed 294 only if the response is affirmative. 295 296 297 -path 298 Like -name, but matches the entire file path and not 299 just basename, and without any special treatment of 300 leading periods. 301 302 303 -perm [-]mode 304 The mode argument is used to represent file mode bits. 305 It is identical in format to the symbolic mode 306 operand, symbolic_mode_list, described in chmod(1), 307 and is interpreted as follows. To start, a template is 308 assumed with all file mode bits cleared. An op symbol 309 of: 310 311 + 312 Set the appropriate mode bits in the template 313 314 315 - 316 Clear the appropriate bits 317 318 319 = 320 Set the appropriate mode bits, without regard 321 to the contents of the file mode creation mask 322 of the process 323 324 The op symbol of - cannot be the first character of 325 mode, to avoid ambiguity with the optional leading 326 hyphen. Since the initial mode is all bits off, there 327 are no symbolic modes that need to use - as the first 328 character. 329 330 If the hyphen is omitted, the primary evaluates as 331 true when the file permission bits exactly match the 332 value of the resulting template. 333 334 Otherwise, if mode is prefixed by a hyphen, the 335 primary evaluates as true if at least all the bits in 336 the resulting template are set in the file permission 337 bits. 338 339 340 -perm [-]onum 341 True if the file permission flags exactly match the 342 octal number onum (see chmod(1)). If onum is prefixed 343 by a minus sign (-), only the bits that are set in 344 onum are compared with the file permission flags, and 345 the expression evaluates true if they match. 346 347 348 -print 349 Always true. Causes the current pathname to be 350 printed. 351 352 353 -print0 354 Always true. Causes the current pathname to be 355 printed, terminated by an ASCII NUL character 356 (character code 0) instead of a newline. 357 358 359 -prune 360 Always yields true. Does not examine any directories 361 or files in the directory structure below the pattern 362 just matched. (See EXAMPLES). If -depth is specified, 363 -prune has no effect. 364 365 366 -regex pattern 367 True if the full path of the file matches pattern 368 using regular expressions. 369 370 371 -size n[c] 372 True if the file is n blocks long (512 bytes per 373 block). If n is followed by a c, the size is in bytes. 374 375 376 -type c 377 True if the type of the file is c, where c is b, c, d, 378 D, f, l, p, or s for block special file, character 379 special file, directory, door, plain file, symbolic 380 link, fifo (named pipe), or socket, respectively. 381 382 383 -user uname 384 True if the file belongs to the user uname. If uname 385 is numeric and there's no such user name, it is taken 386 as a user ID. 387 388 389 -useracl uname 390 True if the file's ACL contains an entry for the user 391 uname. If uname is numeric and there's no such user 392 name, it is taken as a user ID. 393 394 395 -xdev 396 Same as the -mount primary. 397 398 399 -xattr 400 True if the file has extended attributes. 401 402 403 Complex Expressions 404 The primaries can be combined using the following operators (in order 405 of decreasing precedence): 406 407 1)(expression) 408 409 True if the parenthesized expression is true (parentheses are 410 special to the shell and must be escaped). 411 412 413 2)!expression 414 415 The negation of a primary (! is the unary not operator). 416 417 418 3) expression[-a] expression 419 420 Concatenation of primaries (the and operation is implied by the 421 juxtaposition of two primaries). 422 423 424 4) expression-oexpression 425 426 Alternation of primaries (-o is the or operator). 427 428 429 430 When you use find in conjunction with cpio, if you use the -L option 431 with cpio, you must use the -L option or the -follow primitive with 432 find and vice versa. Otherwise the results are unspecified. 433 434 435 If no expression is present, -print is used as the expression. 436 Otherwise, if the specified expression does not contain any of the 437 primaries -exec, -ok, -ls, or -print, the specified expression is 438 effectively replaced by: 439 440 441 (specified) -print 442 443 444 The -user, -group, and -newer primaries each evaluate their respective 445 arguments only once. Invocation of command specified by -exec or -ok 446 does not affect subsequent primaries on the same file. 447 448 USAGE 449 See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of find when 450 encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte (2^31 bytes). 451 452 EXAMPLES 453 Example 1 Writing Out the Hierarchy Directory 454 455 456 The following commands are equivalent: 457 458 459 example% find . 460 example% find . -print 461 462 463 464 465 They both write out the entire directory hierarchy from the current 466 directory. 467 468 469 Example 2 Removing Files 470 471 472 The following command removes all files in your home directory named 473 a.out or *.o that have not been accessed for a week: 474 475 476 example% find $HOME \( -name a.out -o -name '*.o' \) \ 477 -atime +7 -exec rm {} \; 478 479 480 481 Example 3 Printing All File Names But Skipping SCCS Directories 482 483 484 The following command recursively print all file names in the current 485 directory and below, but skipping SCCS directories: 486 487 488 example% find . -name SCCS -prune -o -print 489 490 491 492 Example 4 Printing all file names and the SCCS directory name 493 494 495 Recursively print all file names in the current directory and below, 496 skipping the contents of SCCS directories, but printing out the SCCS 497 directory name: 498 499 500 example% find . -print -name SCCS -prune 501 502 503 504 Example 5 Testing for the Newer File 505 506 507 The following command is basically equivalent to the -nt extension to 508 test(1): 509 510 511 example$ if [ -n "$(find 512 file1 -prune -newer file2)" ]; then 513 514 printf %s\\n "file1 is newer than file2" 515 516 517 518 Example 6 Selecting a File Using 24-hour Mode 519 520 521 The descriptions of -atime, -ctime, and -mtime use the terminology n 522 ``24-hour periods''. For example, a file accessed at 23:59 is selected 523 by: 524 525 526 example% find . -atime -1 -print 527 528 529 530 531 at 00:01 the next day (less than 24 hours later, not more than one day 532 ago). The midnight boundary between days has no effect on the 24-hour 533 calculation. 534 535 536 Example 7 Printing Files Matching a User's Permission Mode 537 538 539 The following command recursively print all file names whose permission 540 mode exactly matches read, write, and execute access for user, and read 541 and execute access for group and other: 542 543 544 example% find . -perm u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx 545 546 547 548 549 The above could alternatively be specified as follows: 550 551 552 example% find . -perm a=rwx,g-w,o-w 553 554 555 556 Example 8 Printing Files with Write Access for other 557 558 559 The following command recursively print all file names whose permission 560 includes, but is not limited to, write access for other: 561 562 563 example% find . -perm -o+w 564 565 566 567 Example 9 Printing Local Files without Descending Non-local Directories 568 569 example% find . ! -local -prune -o -print 570 571 572 573 Example 10 Printing the Files in the Name Space Possessing Extended 574 Attributes 575 576 example% find . -xattr 577 578 579 580 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 581 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables 582 that affect the execution of find: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, 583 LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH. 584 585 PATH 586 Determine the location of the utility_name for the -exec and 587 -ok primaries. 588 589 590 591 Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular 592 expression defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category 593 of the user's locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category 594 defines the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi- 595 character collating elements used in the expression defined for 596 yesexpr. The locale specified in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for 597 interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data a characters, the 598 behavior of character classes used in the expression defined for the 599 yesexpr. See locale(5). 600 601 EXIT STATUS 602 The following exit values are returned: 603 604 0 605 All path operands were traversed successfully. 606 607 608 >0 609 An error occurred. 610 611 612 FILES 613 /etc/passwd 614 Password file 615 616 617 /etc/group 618 Group file 619 620 621 /etc/dfs/fstypes 622 File that registers distributed file system 623 packages 624 625 626 ATTRIBUTES 627 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: 628 629 630 631 632 +--------------------+-------------------+ 633 | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | 634 +--------------------+-------------------+ 635 |CSI | Enabled | 636 +--------------------+-------------------+ 637 |Interface Stability | Committed | 638 +--------------------+-------------------+ 639 |Standard | See standards(5). | 640 +--------------------+-------------------+ 641 642 SEE ALSO 643 chmod(1), cpio(1), sh(1), test(1), ls(1B), acl(5), regex(5), stat(2), 644 umask(2), attributes(5), environ(5), fsattr(5), largefile(5), 645 locale(5), standards(5) 646 647 WARNINGS 648 The following options are obsolete and will not be supported in future 649 releases: 650 651 -cpio device 652 Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio 653 format (5120-byte records). 654 655 656 -ncpio device 657 Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio 658 -c format (5120-byte records). 659 660 661 NOTES 662 When using find to determine files modified within a range of time, use 663 the -mtime argument before the -print argument. Otherwise, find gives 664 all files. 665 666 667 Some files that might be under the Solaris root file system are 668 actually mount points for virtual file systems, such as mntfs or 669 namefs. When comparing against a ufs file system, such files are not 670 selected if -mount or -xdev is specified in the find expression. 671 672 673 Using the -L or -follow option is not recommended when descending a 674 file-system hierarchy that is under the control of other users. In 675 particular, when using -exec, symbolic links can lead the find command 676 out of the hierarchy in which it started. Using -type is not sufficient 677 to restrict the type of files on which the -exec command operates, 678 because there is an inherent race condition between the type-check 679 performed by the find command and the time the executed command 680 operates on the file argument. 681 682 683 684 February 20, 2020 FIND(1)