Find command: Exclude / Ignore Files ( Ignore Hidden .dot Files )

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: August 31, 2008]

Q. How do I ignore hidden .dot files while searching for files? How do I ignore or exclude certain files while running Linux / UNIX find command?

A. Find command support standard UNIX regex to match or exclude files. You can write complex queries easily with regex.

Find command and logical operators

Find any file whose name ends with either 'c' or 'asm', enter:
$ find . -type f $ -iname "*.c" -or -iname "*.asm" $
The parentheses must be escaped with a backslash, "$" and "$", to prevent them from being interpreted as special shell characters. The -type f option force to only search files and not directories. The or operator either find .c or .asm file.

Understanding find command operators

Operators build a complex expression from tests and actions. The operators are, in order of decreasing precedence:

( expr )	Force precedence. True if expr is true
expr -not expr	True if expr is false. In some shells, it is necessary to protect the ‘!’ from shell interpretation by quoting it.
expr1 -and expr2	And; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is false.
expr1 -or expr2	Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.

Warning operators are not avilable on all versions of find

WARNING! The '-or', '-and', and '-not' operator are not available on all versions of find. Usually GNU find supports all options. Refer your local find command man page for more information.

How do I ignore hidden .dot files while searching for files?

Find *.txt file but ignore hidden .txt file such as .vimrc or .data.txt file:
$ find . -type f $ -iname "*.txt" ! -iname ".*" $
Find all .dot files but ignore .htaccess file:
$ find . -type f $ -iname ".*" ! -iname ".htaccess" $

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