A collection of Unix/Linux find command examples

gistfile1.md

source: http://alvinalexander.com/unix/edu/examples/find.shtml

basic 'find file' commands

find / -name foo.txt -type f -print             # full command
find / -name foo.txt -type f                    # -print isn't necessary
find / -name foo.txt                            # don't have to specify "type==file"
find . -name foo.txt                            # search under the current dir
find . -name "foo.*"                            # wildcard
find . -name "*.txt"                            # wildcard
find /users/al -name Cookbook -type d           # search '/users/al'

search multiple dirs

find /opt /usr /var -name foo.scala -type f     # search multiple dirs

case-insensitive searching

find . -iname foo                               # find foo, Foo, FOo, FOO, etc.
find . -iname foo -type d                       # same thing, but only dirs
find . -iname foo -type f                       # same thing, but only files

find files with different extensions

find . -type f \( -name "*.c" -o -name "*.sh" \)                       # *.c and *.sh files
find . -type f \( -name "*cache" -o -name "*xml" -o -name "*html" \)   # three patterns

find files that don't match a pattern (-not)

find . -type f -not -name "*.html"                                # find all files not ending in ".html"

find files by text in the file (find + grep)

find . -type f -name "*.java" -exec grep -l StringBuffer {} \;    # find StringBuffer in all *.java files
find . -type f -name "*.java" -exec grep -il string {} \;         # ignore case with -i option
find . -type f -name "*.gz" -exec zgrep 'GET /foo' {} \;          # search for a string in gzip'd files

5 lines before, 10 lines after grep matches

find . -type f -name "*.scala" -exec grep -B5 -A10 'null' {} \;
     (see http://alvinalexander.com/linux-unix/find-grep-print-lines-before-after-...)

find files and act on them (find + exec)

find /usr/local -name "*.html" -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;      # change html files to mode 644
find htdocs cgi-bin -name "*.cgi" -type f -exec chmod 755 {} \;   # change cgi files to mode 755
find . -name "*.pl" -exec ls -ld {} \;                            # run ls command on files found

find and copy

find . -type f -name "*.mp3" -exec cp {} /tmp/MusicFiles \;       # cp *.mp3 files to /tmp/MusicFiles

copy one file to many dirs

find dir1 dir2 dir3 dir4 -type d -exec cp header.shtml {} \;      # copy the file header.shtml to those dirs

find and delete

find . -type f -name "Foo*" -exec rm {} \;                        # remove all "Foo*" files under current dir
find . -type d -name CVS -exec rm -r {} \;                        # remove all subdirectories named "CVS" under current dir

find files by modification time

find . -mtime 1               # 24 hours
find . -mtime -7              # last 7 days
find . -mtime -7 -type f      # just files
find . -mtime -7 -type d      # just dirs

find files by modification time using a temp file

touch 09301330 poop           # 1) create a temp file with a specific timestamp
find . -mnewer poop           # 2) returns a list of new files
rm poop                       # 3) rm the temp file

find with time: this works on mac os x

find / -newerct '1 minute ago' -print

find and tar

find . -type f -name "*.java" | xargs tar cvf myfile.tar
find . -type f -name "*.java" | xargs tar rvf myfile.tar
     (see http://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/linux-unix/using-find-xargs-tar-crea...
     for more information)

find, tar, and xargs

find . -name -type f '*.mp3' -mtime -180 -print0 | xargs -0 tar rvf music.tar
     (-print0 helps handle spaces in filenames)
     (see http://alvinalexander.com/mac-os-x/mac-backup-filename-directories-space...)

find and pax (instead of xargs and tar)

find . -type f -name "*html" | xargs tar cvf jw-htmlfiles.tar -
find . -type f -name "*html" | pax -w -f jw-htmlfiles.tar
     (see http://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/linux-unix/using-pax-instead-of-tar)

locate command

locate tomcat.sh          # search the entire filesystem for 'tomcat.sh' (uses the locate database)
locate -i spring.jar      # case-insensitive search