find(1)find(1)NAMEfind - Finds files matching an expression
SYNOPSISfind pathname... expression
STANDARDS
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan‐
dards as follows:
find: XCU5.0
Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about
industry standards and associated tags.
OPTIONS
None
OPERANDS
Starting point in the directory hierarchy. Series of arguments built
as described in the DESCRIPTION section.
DESCRIPTION
The find command recursively searches the directory tree for each spec‐
ified path name, seeking files that match the Boolean expression. The
output from the find command varies depending on the terms used in
expression.
Pathname
The pathname operand is the starting point in a directory tree for the
search. If a file name is used for the path name, the current directory
is assumed. A null path name is not permitted, i.e., find "" returns an
error.
Expressions
In the following descriptions, the argument number is a decimal integer
that can be specified as +number (more than number), -number (less than
number), or number (exactly number). TRUE if the file was accessed in
the past number days, where number is interpreted as described in this
reference page. Writes the current file to device in cpio format. See
the cpio command. TRUE if the file inode was changed in the past num‐
ber days, where number is interpreted as described in this reference
page. Always evaluates to TRUE. This causes the descent of the direc‐
tory hierarchy to be done so that all entries in a directory are
affected before the directory itself. This can be useful when find is
used with cpio to transfer files that are contained in directories
without write permission. TRUE if the command runs and returns a 0
(zero) value as exit status. The end of command must be punctuated by
a quoted or escaped ; (semicolon). The command parameter { } is
replaced by the current path name. TRUE if expression is TRUE. Always
evaluates to TRUE . Causes symbolic links to be followed. When follow‐
ing symbolic links, the find command keeps track of the directories
visited so that infinite loops can be detected. For example, a loop
can occur if a symbolic link points to an ancestor. This expression
should not be used with the -type type expression where type is of type
l. TRUE if the file system to which the file belongs is of the type
type as follows: [Tru64 UNIX] UNIX File System (Berkeley fast file
system) or a swap partition [Tru64 UNIX] Network File System (NFS),
Version 2 protocol [Tru64 UNIX] Memory File System (RAM Disk) (See
mfs(8)) [Tru64 UNIX] PC File System [Tru64 UNIX] System V File System
[Tru64 UNIX] ISO 9660 or High Sierra Formatted (CD-ROM) File System
[Tru64 UNIX] DCE Distributed File System [Tru64 UNIX] DCE Episode
File System [Tru64 UNIX] Process File System (used by debuggers)
[Tru64 UNIX] Advanced File System (AdvFS) [Tru64 UNIX] File on File
mount (used by streams) [Tru64 UNIX] File Descriptor File System (used
by streams) [Tru64 UNIX] Reserved for third-party file systems [Tru64
UNIX] Network File System, Version 3 protocol TRUE if the file belongs
to group. If group is numeric and does not appear as a group name in
the /etc/group file, it is interpreted as a group ID. TRUE if file has
inode number. TRUE if file has inode number. [Tru64 UNIX] TRUE if
the file has number links. See the ln command. Always evaluates to
TRUE; causes pathname to be printed together with its associated sta‐
tistics. 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 contain instead the major and minor device numbers.
[Tru64 UNIX] The find command does not follow symbolic links to
other directories or files. Rather, it applies the specified
selection criteria to the symbolic links themselves, treating
them as if they were ordinary files. (For more information on
symbolic links, see ln(1).) [Tru64 UNIX] TRUE if the current
file is on the same file system as the current starting path
name. TRUE if the file was modified in the past number days,
where number is interpreted as described in this reference page.
TRUE if file matches the file name. You can use pattern-match‐
ing characters, provided they are quoted. In an expression such
as [a-z], the dash means through according to the current col‐
lating sequence. The collating sequence is determined by the
value of the LC_COLLATE environment variable. See the reference
page for your current shell for a more detailed explanation of
pattern matching and quoting special characters. Sets the
input/output size (5120 bytes by default) to size. TRUE if the
current file was modified more recently than the file indicated
by file. The find command asks you whether it should start com‐
mand. If your response begins with y, or the locale's equiva‐
lent of a y, command is started. The end of command must be
punctuated by a quoted or escaped semicolon. TRUE if the file
permission code of the file exactly matches octal_number (see
the chmod(1) reference page).
The octal_number argument may be up to three octal digits. If
you want to test the higher-order permission bits (the set-user-
ID bit or set-group-ID bit, for example), prefix the octal_num‐
ber argument with a - (dash). This makes more flag bits signif‐
icant (see the stat system call for an explanation of the addi‐
tional bits), and also changes the comparison to
(flags&octal_number)==octal_number Always TRUE; causes the cur‐
rent path name to be displayed. If an expression is not speci‐
fied or if expression is not -ok or -exec, -print is the
default. For example, the following commands produce the same
result:
find . find . -printfind . -name "*"
Always TRUE. Prunes the search tree at the file. That is, if
the current path name is a directory, the find command does not
descend into that directory. In a networking environment, this
flag keeps the find command from searching through remote file
systems. TRUE if the file is number blocks long (512 bytes per
block). For this comparison, the file size is rounded up to the
nearest block. TRUE if the file is number bytes long. TRUE if
the file is number kilobytes long. For this comparison, the file
size is rounded up to the nearest kilobyte. TRUE if the file
type is of the specified type as follows: [Tru64 UNIX] Block
special file [Tru64 UNIX] Character special file Directory
Plain file [Tru64 UNIX] Symbolic link [Tru64 UNIX] FIFO (a
named pipe) [Tru64 UNIX] Socket TRUE if the file belongs to
user. If user is numeric and does not appear as a login name in
the /etc/passwd file, it is interpreted as a user ID. Always
TRUE; causes find not to traverse down a file system different
from the one on which the current path name resides.
The primaries may be combined using the following operators (in
descending order of precedence): A parenthesized group of primaries and
operators. Parentheses are special to the shell and must be escaped.
Parentheses must be separated from other primaries and operators by at
least one space. The negation of a primary (! is the unary not opera‐
tor). Concatenation of primaries (the and operation is implied by the
juxtaposition of two primaries but can also be specified explicitly
with the -a operator). Alternation of primaries (-o is the or opera‐
tor).
To avoid unpredictable results when using a range expression to match a
class of characters, use a character class expression rather than a
standard range expression. For information about character class
expressions, see the grep command.
If the environment variable STDS_FLAG is set to ALL, the command
ignores -- if it is given as the first argument.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: All pathname operands were tra‐
versed successfully. An error occurred.
RETURN VALUES
The -exec command expression evaluates TRUE if the command runs and
returns a 0 (zero) value as exit status.
EXAMPLES
To list all files in the file system with a given base file name,
enter: find / -name .profile -print
This searches the entire file system and writes the complete
path names of all files named / (forwardslash) tells find to
search the root directory and all of its subdirectories. This
may take a while, so it is best to limit the search by specify‐
ing the directories where you think the files might be. To list
the files with a specific permission code in the current direc‐
tory tree, enter: find . -perm 0600 -print
This lists the names of the files that have only owner-read and
owner-write permission. The (dot) tells find to search the cur‐
rent directory and its subdirectories. See the chmod(1) refer‐
ence page for details about permission codes. To search several
directories for files with certain permission codes, enter: find
manual clients proposals -perm -0600 -print
This lists the names of the files that have owner-read and
owner-write permission and possibly other permissions. The
directories manual, clients, and proposals, and their subdirec‐
tories, are searched. Note that -perm 0600 in the previous
example selects only files with permission codes that match 0600
exactly. In this example, -perm -0600 selects files with permis‐
sion codes that allow at least the accesses indicated by 0600.
This also matches the permission codes 0622 and 2744. To search
for regular files with multiple links, enter: find . -type f
-links +1 -print
This lists the names of the ordinary files (-type f) that have
more than one link (-links +1). Note that every directory has
at least two links: the entry in its parent directory and its
own (dot) entry. See the ln command for details about multiple
file links. To find all accessible files whose path name begins
with find, enter: find find -print To remove all files named
a.out or *.o that have not been accessed for a week and that are
not mounted using nfs, enter: find / \( -name a.out -o -name
'*.o' \) -atime +7 -exec \
rm {} \; -o -fstype nfs -prune To find all files modified
within the last 24 hours, enter: find . -mtime 1 -print To find
all files on the root file system, enter: find / -mount -print
To write all the files on the root file system to tape, enter:
find / -mount-print-cpio /dev/tape/tape?_d0 cpio -iBvt
</dev/tape?_d0
Where ? is the instance number of the tape device, commonly “0”
on a single-tape system. Use the hwmgr command to determine
instance numbers, as follows: # hwmgr show scsi . . 61: 3
cymro tape none 0 1 tape0 [5/0/0]. . .
To find all the mount points on the root file system, enter:
find / ! -mount -print The next several examples show how to
build complex expressions using the available operators. These
examples use the directory structure that follows: % ls -al
total 77 drwxr-xr-x 9 me users 8192 Nov 6 17:28 .
drwxrwxrwx 47 me users 8192 Nov 6 13:30 .. -rw-
r--r-- 1 me users 1559 Dec 23 1996 7 -rw-r--r--
1 me users 7 May 30 12:22 abc -rw-r--r-- 1 me
users 0 Nov 5 17:44 ccc drwxr-xr-x 2 me users
8192 Apr 6 1997 crn drwxr-xr-x 3 me users 8192
Mar 23 1997 crypto drwxr-xr-x 2 me users 8192 Sep
12 14:24 exp -rwx--x--x 1 me users 0 Nov 1
1996 filea ---x-w--wx 1 me users 0 Nov 1 1996
fileb -rw-r--r-- 1 me adm 0 Jun 13 13:43
filek -rwxr-xr-x 1 me users 216 Nov 1 1996
filet -rw-r--r-- 1 me users 0 Nov 6 17:35 find-rw-r--r-- 1 me adm 0 Jun 13 13:43 gfilek
-rwxr-xr-x 1 me users 216 Nov 6 17:28 gfilet
drwxr-xr-x 2 me users 8192 Oct 23 13:49 h4d -rw-
r--r-- 1 me adm 0 Jun 13 13:43 hfilek drwxr-
xr-x 2 me users 8192 Oct 23 11:50 resume drwxr-xr-
x 2 me users 8192 Sep 8 13:31 timtst -rw-r--r--
1 me users 0 Nov 6 17:25 typescript drwxr-xr-x
2 me users 8192 Dec 18 1996 wordgame The following
example finds all files that have a name starting with file.
Notice that the asterisk must be escaped to prevent the shell
from interpreting it as a special character. % find . -name
file\*
./filea ./fileb ./filet ./filek The following example finds all
files that have a name starting with file and an owning group of
adm. Notice that this is the default behavior, and is identical
to the next example using the -a operator. % find . -name
file\* -group adm
./filek The following example finds all files that have a name
starting with file and an owning group of adm. Notice that this
is identical to the prior example of the default behavior. %
find . -name file\* -a -group adm
./filek The following example finds all files that have a name
starting with file or that have an owning group of adm. % find
. -name file\* -o -group adm
./filea ./fileb ./filet ./filek ./gfilek ./hfilek The following
example finds all files that have a name starting with file or
that have an owning group of adm and a name starting with gf. %
find . -name file\* -o -group adm -name gf\*
./filea ./fileb ./filet ./filek ./gfilek The following example
finds all files that have a name starting with file and that
have an owning group of adm or a name starting with gf. % find
. -name file\* -a -group adm -o -name gf\*
./filek ./gfilek ./gfilet The following example finds all files
that have an owning group other than the group users. % find .
! -group users
./filek ./gfilek ./hfilek The following example finds all files
owned by the group users and that have a name starting with file
or that have a name starting with cc. % find . \( -group users
-a -name file\* \) -o -name cc\*
./filea ./fileb ./filet ./ccc The following example finds all
files not owned by the group users and that have a name starting
with file or that have a name starting with cc. % find . \( !
-group users -a -name file\* \) -o -name cc\*
./filek ./ccc
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables affect the execution of find: Pro‐
vides a default value for the internationalization variables that are
unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from
the default locale is used. If any of the internationalization vari‐
ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the
variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value, over‐
rides the values of all the other internationalization variables.
Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of
text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi‐
byte characters in arguments). Determines the locale for the format
and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. Deter‐
mines the location of message catalogues for the processing of LC_MES‐
SAGES. Determines the location of command for -exec and -ok primaries.
Resolves the behavior of the command in some scenarios that cause non‐
compliance with POSIX standards. Setting this variable to ALL enables
the command to overcome all instances of noncompliance.
FILES
Contains group information. Contains user information.
SEE ALSO
Commands: chmod(1), cpio(1), df(1), grep(1), ln(1), mount(8), Bourne
shell sh(1b), POSIX shell sh(1p), test(1)
Functions: mount(2), stat(2)
Routines: getvfsbyname(3)
Files: fs(4), fstab(4), cdfs(4)
Standards: standards(5)find(1)
