The find command support standard UNIX regex to match, include or exclude files. You can write complex queries easily with regex while find command recursively descends the directory tree for each /file/to/path listed, evaluating an expression. The syntax is as follows:
## Basic syntax ## find /dir/to/search/ -options -name 'regex' -action find /dir/to/search/ -options -iname 'regex' -action find /dir/to/search/ -type f -name 'regex' -print find /dir/to/search/ -type f -name \( expression \) -print ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ## ## The -and operator is the logical AND operator ## find /dir/to/search/ -type f -name 'expression -and expression' -print ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ## ## The -or operator is the logical OR operator. The expression evaluates ## ## to true if either the first or the second expression is true. ## find /dir/to/search/ -type f -name 'expression -or expression' -print |
Examples: find command and logical operators
Find any file whose name ends with either ‘c’ or ‘asm’, enter:
$ find . -type f \( -iname "*.c" -or -iname "*.asm" \)
OR find all *.conf and text file in /etc/ directory:
$ find . -type f \( -name "*.conf" -or -name "*.txt" \) -print
Sample outputs:
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 ! expr | True if expr is false. In some shells, it is necessary to protect the ‘!’ from shell interpretation by quoting it. |
| expr1 -and expr2 | expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is false. |
| expr1 -or expr2 | expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true. |
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 \( -iname ".*" ! -iname ".htaccess" \)
Say hello to -path option
This option return true if the pathname being examined matches pattern. For example, find all *.txt files in the current directory but exclude ./Movies/, ./Downloads/, and ./Music/ folders:
cd $HOME find . -type f -name "*.txt" ! -path "./Movies/*" ! -path "./Downloads/*" ! -path "./Music/*" ## add -ls option to get ls -l kind of output ## find . -type f -name "*.txt" ! -path "./Movies/*" ! -path "./Downloads/*" ! -path "./Music/*" -ls |
Sample outputs:
./.config/gcloud/legacy_credentials/vivekgite@google.com/gaejava.txt ./adsl-ip-info.txt ./Desktop/Bills-PDF/codex.txt ./Desktop/Bills-PDF/2015.txt ./Desktop/Bills-PDF/receipt-05-OCT-14 10-08 AM.txt ./Desktop/Bills-PDF/untitled.txt ./Desktop/Bills-PDF/wufoo/Give Us Feedback for nixCraft.txt ./Desktop/tutorials.txt ./Desktop/untitled 4.txt ./Documents/centos-7-selinux.txt ./Documents/hhmv-domain.txt ./Documents/ip.txt ./Documents/pfsec-ipsec.txt ./Documents/smem-rhel-centos.txt ./Documents/3m.txt
18 comment
Thanks for the ! example!!
Hi! Cna u help me?
I need find all *.css file but exclude one file /lang/en.css, but include /1/lang/en.css
find . -path ‘*/lang/en.css’ -prune -o -name ‘*.css’ -print; find . -path ‘*/1/lang/en.css’ -print
can you help me?
I need to find all files older than 500 days.
this is my code so far and I get an error saying -iname is not a valid option.
find . -type f \( ! -iname ".*" \) -mtime +500 -exec ls {} \;find . -type f -not -name ‘.*’ -mtime +500 -exec ls {} \;
thanks for excellent tips on find command
i have some issue
having a directory LOG. in that so many files and directories are there. i want to find and delete the file which starts with PS. but it should not check sub directories.
I have to delete the files modified yesterday so I can keep only today files (which I download daily ) in current directory how do I do that ?
Is there a way to get a list of “.c” files and grep the contents only in those files for a keyword?
I tried
find . -type f \( -iname “*.c” \) |grep -i -r “keyword”
It seems like grep is still going through all the files and not just the “.c” files.
find . -name "*.c" -exec grep -ir "keyword" {} ";"How can i find a last 5 min created file in a folder not the sub folder like.
i serach a file inside folder /home/pankaj but not in /home/pankaj/test/test1
You can not check creation time but you can check for last change like this:
find /home/pankaj -maxdepth 1 -cmin -5 -type f
The “-maxdepth 1” keeps find from looking in subfolders but will check the subfolder itself, that’s why you use “-type f” to only look for files, “-cmin” specifies the minutes since last change, use +5 to get files older than 5 min.
Hi Pankaj, i was faced same issue, i search on internet and found this article, its really helpful, i succeed that with Long Path Tool, you can try
In find command i am not entered file name, so it’s showing error message.
Eg: find . -name
error like “parameter not entered”
I want to discard this error
I used the Error handling method like “2>/dev/null
then also error is showing.
if any one knows reply me.
Your tutorial is very clear and helpful.
Thank so much!
find . -size +20M -type f \( ! -iname "*.ppm" ! -iname "*.pic" ! -iname "*.v" \)The above command can show all files with greater than 20 Mega Bytes and not having following extension .ppm, .pic, .v
Hi,
Am trying to find some files which are created 6 months ago Or 180 days back. and delete all, but except the files which contains “1545” in the filename any help please.
I could able to fine all the files but could not able to exclude them
find . -type f -not -name ‘.*’ -mtime +180 -exec ls {} \;Thank you in advance.
Found solution
find . -type f ! -iname "*1545*" -not -name ‘.*’ -mtime +180 -exec rm -f {} \;all because of your examples above.