The find command used to search for files in a directory hierarchy as per given criteria. The tar command is an archiving utility for Linux and Unix-like system to create tarballs. Let us see how to combine tar command with find command to create a tarball in a single command line option.
Find command syntax
The syntax is:
find /path/to/search -name "file-to-search" -options
## find all Perl (*.pl) files ##
find $HOME -name "*.pl" -print
## find all *.doc files ##
find $HOME -name "*.doc" -print
## find all *.sh (shell scripts) and run ls -l command on it ##
find . -iname "*.sh" -exec ls -l {} +
Sample outputs from the last command:
-rw-r--r-- 1 vivek vivek 1169 Apr 4 2017 ./backups/ansible/cluster/nginx.build.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 1500 Dec 6 14:36 ./bin/cloudflare.pure.url.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 13 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/cmspostupload.sh -> postupload.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 12 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/cmspreupload.sh -> preupload.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 14 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/cmssuploadimage.sh -> uploadimage.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 13 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/faqpostupload.sh -> postupload.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 12 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/faqpreupload.sh -> preupload.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 14 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/faquploadimage.sh -> uploadimage.sh -rw-r--r-- 1 vivek vivek 778 Nov 6 14:44 ./bin/mirror.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 136 Apr 25 2015 ./bin/nixcraft.com.301.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 547 Jan 30 2017 ./bin/paypal.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 531 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/postupload.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 437 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/preupload.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 1046 May 18 2017 ./bin/purge.all.cloudflare.domain.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 13 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/tipspostupload.sh -> postupload.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 12 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/tipspreupload.sh -> preupload.sh lrwxrwxrwx 1 vivek vivek 14 Dec 31 2013 ./bin/tipsuploadimage.sh -> uploadimage.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 1193 Oct 18 2013 ./bin/uploadimage.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 29 Nov 6 14:33 ./.vim/plugged/neomake/tests/fixtures/errors.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 vivek vivek 215 Nov 6 14:33 ./.vim/plugged/neomake/tests/helpers/trap.sh |
Tar command syntax
To create a tar ball of /home/vivek/projects directory, run:
$ tar -cvf /home/vivek/projects.tar /home/vivek/projects
Combining find and tar commands
The syntax is:
find /dir/to/search/ -name "*.doc" -exec tar -rvf out.tar {} \;
OR
find /dir/to/search/ -name "*.doc" -exec tar -rvf out.tar {} +
For example:
find $HOME -name "*.doc" -exec tar -rvf /tmp/all-doc-files.tar "{}" \;
OR
find $HOME -name "*.doc" -exec tar -rvf /tmp/all-doc-files.tar "{}" +
Where, find command options:
- -name "*.doc" : Find file as per given pattern/criteria. In this case find all *.doc files in $HOME.
- -exec tar ... : Execute tar command on all files found by the find command.
Where, tar command options:
- -r : Append files to the end of an archive. Arguments have the same meaning as for -c option.
- -v : Verbose output.
- -f : out.tar : Append all files to out.tar file.
It is also possible to pipe output of the find command to the tar command as follows:
find $HOME -name "*.doc" -print0 | tar -cvf /tmp/file.tar --null -T -
The -print0 option passed to the find command deals with special file names. The –null and -T – option tells the tar command to read its input from stdin/pipe. It is also possible to use the xargs command:
find $HOME -type f -name "*.sh" | xargs tar cfvz /nfs/x230/my-shell-scripts.tgz
See the following man pages for more info:
$ man tar
$ man find
$ man xargs
$ man bash
See also: Unix command to find a file in a directory and subdirectory
1 comment
I think you should put more emphasis on handling special characters in file names, e.g. spaces. Personally I would have suggested the bottom-most approach using `xargs`, but to avoid errors `-print0` should be used here too, in combination with the `-0` / `–null` argument of `xargs`.