FIND

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

-fstype type

True if the filesystem to which the the file belongs is of type type, where type is typically 4.3 or nfs.

-name filename

True if the filename argument matches the current file name. Shell argument syntax can be used if escaped (watch out for [, ? and *).

-perm onum

True if the file permission flags exactly match the octal number onum (see chmod(1V)). If onum is prefixed by a minus sign, more flag bits (017777, see stat(2)) become significant and the flags are compared: (flags&onum)==onum.

-prune

Always yields true. Has the side effect of pruning the search tree at the file. That is, if the current path name is a directory, find will not descend into that directory.

-type c

True if the type of the file is c, where c is one of:

b

for block special file,

c

for character special file,

d

for directory,

f

for plain file,

p

for named pipe (FIFO),

l

for symbolic link, or

s

for socket.

-links n

True if the file has n links.

-user uname

True if the file belongs to the user uname. If uname is numeric and does not appear as a login name in the passwd(5) database, it is taken as a user ID.

-nouser

True if the file belongs to a user not in the passwd database.

-group gname

True if the file belongs to group gname. If gname is numeric and does not appear as a login name in the group(5) database, it is taken as a group ID.

-nogroup

True if the file belongs to a group not in the group database.

-size n

True if the file is n blocks long (512 bytes per block). If n is followed by a c, the size is in characters.

-inum n

True if the file has inode number n.

-atime n

True if the file has been accessed in n days. Note that the access time of directories in path-name-list is changed by find itself.

-mtime n

True if the file has been modified in n days.

-ctime n

True if the file has been changed in n days. ``Changed'' means either that the file has been modified or some attribute of the file (its owner, its group, the number of links to it, etc.) has been changed.

-exec command

True if the executed command returns a zero value as exit status. The end of command must be punctuated by an escaped semicolon. A command argument {} is replaced by the current pathname.

-ok command

Like -exec except that the generated command is written on the standard output, then the standard input is read and the command executed only upon response y.

-print

Always true; the current pathname is printed.

-ls

Always true; causes current pathname to be printed together with its associated statistics. These include (respectively) inode number, size in kilobytes (1024 bytes), protection mode, number of hard links, user, group, size in bytes, and modification time. If the file is a special file the size field will instead contain the major and minor device numbers. If the file is a symbolic link the pathname of the linked-to file is printed preceded by ``->''. The format is identical to that of ``ls -gilds'' (note however that formatting is done internally, without executing the ls program).

-cpio device

Always true; write the current file on device in cpio format (5120-byte records).

-ncpio device

Always true; write the current file on device in cpio-c format (5120-byte records).

-newer file

True if the current file has been modified more recently than the argument file.

-xdev

Always true; causes find not to traverse down into a file system different from the one on which current argument pathname resides.

-depth

Always true; causes descent of the directory hierarchy to be done so that all entries in a directory are acted on before the directory itself.

( expression )

True if the parenthesized expression is true (parentheses are special to the shell and must be escaped).

!primary

True if the primary is false (`!' is the unary not operator).

primary1 [ -a ] primary2

True if both primary1 and primary2 are true. The -a is not required. It is implied by the juxtaposition of two primaries.

primary1 -o primary2

True if either primary1 or primary2 is true (`-o' is the or operator).

EXAMPLE

In our local development system, we keep a file called TIMESTAMP in all the manual page directories. Here is how to find all entries that have been updated since TIMESTAMP was created:

angel% find /usr/man/man2 -newer /usr/man/man2/TIMESTAMP -print
/usr/man/man2
/usr/man/man2/socket.2
angel%

To find all the files called intro.ms starting from the current directory:

angel% find . -name intro.ms -print
./manuals/assembler/intro.ms
./manuals/sun.core/intro.ms
./manuals/driver.tut/intro.ms
./manuals/sys.manager/uucp.impl/intro.mss
./supplements/general.works/unix.introduction/intro.mss
./supplements/programming.tools/sccs/intro.mss
angel%

To recursively print all files names in the current directory and below, but skipping SCCS directories:

angel% find . -name SCCS -prune -o -print
angel%

To recursively print all files names in the current directory and below, skipping the contents of SCCS directories, but printing out the SCCS directory name:

angel% find . -print -name SCCS -prune
angel%

To remove files beneath your home directory named `a.out' or `*.o' that have not been accessed for a week and that aren't mounted using NFS:

angel% cd
angel% find . \( -name a.out -o -name '*.o' \) -atime +7 -exec rm {} \; -o -fstype nfs -prune

FILES

SEE ALSO

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLE

FILES

SEE ALSO