FIND(1) General Commands Manual FIND(1)
NAME
find - search for files in a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [path...] [expression]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of find. GNU find searches the directory tree rooted at each given
file name by evaluating the given expression from left to right, according to the rules of precedence (see
section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known (the left hand side is false for and operations, true for or),
at which point find moves on to the next file name.
If you are using find in an environment where security is important (for example if you are using it to search
directories that are writable by other users), you should read the "Security Considerations" chapter of the
findutils documentation, which is called Finding Files and comes with findutils. That document also includes
a lot more detail and discussion than this manual page, so you may find it a more useful source of informa‐
tion.
OPTIONS
The -H, -L and -P options control the treatment of symbolic links. Command-line arguments following these are
taken to be names of files or directories to be examined, up to the first argument that begins with `-', or
the argument `(' or `!'. That argument and any following arguments are taken to be the expression describing
what is to be searched for. If no paths are given, the current directory is used. If no expression is given,
the expression -print is used (but you should probably consider using -print0 instead, anyway).
This manual page talks about `options' within the expression list. These options control the behaviour of
find but are specified immediately after the last path name. The five `real' options -H, -L, -P, -D and -O
must appear before the first path name, if at all. A double dash -- can also be used to signal that any
remaining arguments are not options (though ensuring that all start points begin with either `./' or `/' is
generally safer if you use wildcards in the list of start points).
-P Never follow symbolic links. This is the default behaviour. When find examines or prints information
a file, and the file is a symbolic link, the information used shall be taken from the properties of the
symbolic link itself.
-L Follow symbolic links. When find examines or prints information about files, the information used
shall be taken from the properties of the file to which the link points, not from the link itself
(unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is unable to examine the file to which the link points).
Use of this option implies -noleaf. If you later use the -P option, -noleaf will still be in effect.
If -L is in effect and find discovers a symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search, the subdi‐
rectory pointed to by the symbolic link will be searched.
When the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always match against the type of the file
that a symbolic link points to rather than the link itself (unless the symbolic link is broken). Using
-L causes the -lname and -ilname predicates always to return false.
-H Do not follow symbolic links, except while processing the command line arguments. When find examines
or prints information about files, the information used shall be taken from the properties of the sym‐
bolic link itself. The only exception to this behaviour is when a file specified on the command line
is a symbolic link, and the link can be resolved. For that situation, the information used is taken
from whatever the link points to (that is, the link is followed). The information about the link
itself is used as a fallback if the file pointed to by the symbolic link cannot be examined. If -H is
in effect and one of the paths specified on the command line is a symbolic link to a directory, the
contents of that directory will be examined (though of course -maxdepth 0 would prevent this).
the link (for example because it has insufficient privileges or the link points to a nonexistent file) the
properties of the link itself will be used.
When the -H or -L options are in effect, any symbolic links listed as the argument of -newer will be derefer‐
enced, and the timestamp will be taken from the file to which the symbolic link points. The same considera‐
tion applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer.
The -follow option has a similar effect to -L, though it takes effect at the point where it appears (that is,
if -L is not used but -follow is, any symbolic links appearing after -follow on the command line will be
dereferenced, and those before it will not).
-D debugoptions
Print diagnostic information; this can be helpful to diagnose problems with why find is not doing what
you want. The list of debug options should be comma separated. Compatibility of the debug options is
not guaranteed between releases of findutils. For a complete list of valid debug options, see the out‐
put of find -D help. Valid debug options include
help Explain the debugging options
tree Show the expression tree in its original and optimised form.
stat Print messages as files are examined with the stat and lstat system calls. The find program
tries to minimise such calls.
opt Prints diagnostic information relating to the optimisation of the expression tree; see the -O
option.
rates Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate succeeded or failed.
-Olevel
Enables query optimisation. The find program reorders tests to speed up execution while preserving
the overall effect; that is, predicates with side effects are not reordered relative to each other.
The optimisations performed at each optimisation level are as follows.
0 Equivalent to optimisation level 1.
1 This is the default optimisation level and corresponds to the traditional behaviour. Expres‐
sions are reordered so that tests based only on the names of files (for example -name and
-regex) are performed first.
2 Any -type or -xtype tests are performed after any tests based only on the names of files, but
before any tests that require information from the inode. On many modern versions of Unix, file
types are returned by readdir() and so these predicates are faster to evaluate than predicates
which need to stat the file first. If you use the -fstype FOO predicate and specify a filsystem
type FOO which is not known (that is, present in `/etc/mtab') at the time find starts, that
predicate is equivalent to -false.
3 At this optimisation level, the full cost-based query optimiser is enabled. The order of tests
is modified so that cheap (i.e. fast) tests are performed first and more expensive ones are per‐
formed later, if necessary. Within each cost band, predicates are evaluated earlier or later
according to whether they are likely to succeed or not. For -o, predicates which are likely to
succeed are evaluated earlier, and for -a, predicates which are likely to fail are evaluated
earlier.
file, and always return true), tests (which return a true or false value), and actions (which have side
effects and return a true or false value), all separated by operators. -and is assumed where the operator is
omitted.
If the expression contains no actions other than -prune, -print is performed on all files for which the
expression is true.
OPTIONS
All options always return true. Except for -daystart, -follow and -regextype, the options affect all tests,
including tests specified before the option. This is because the options are processed when the command line
is parsed, while the tests don't do anything until files are examined. The -daystart, -follow and -regextype
options are different in this respect, and have an effect only on tests which appear later in the command
line. Therefore, for clarity, it is best to place them at the beginning of the expression. A warning is
issued if you don't do this.
-d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD, MacOS X and OpenBSD.
-daystart
Measure times (for -amin, -atime, -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and -mtime) from the beginning of today rather
than from 24 hours ago. This option only affects tests which appear later on the command line.
-depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself. The -delete action also implies -depth.
-follow
Deprecated; use the -L option instead. Dereference symbolic links. Implies -noleaf. The -follow
option affects only those tests which appear after it on the command line. Unless the -H or -L option
has been specified, the position of the -follow option changes the behaviour of the -newer predicate;
any files listed as the argument of -newer will be dereferenced if they are symbolic links. The same
consideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer. Similarly, the -type predicate will always
match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points to rather than the link itself. Using
-follow causes the -lname and -ilname predicates always to return false.
-help, --help
Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.
-ignore_readdir_race
Normally, find will emit an error message when it fails to stat a file. If you give this option and a
file is deleted between the time find reads the name of the file from the directory and the time it
tries to stat the file, no error message will be issued. This also applies to files or directories
whose names are given on the command line. This option takes effect at the time the command line is
read, which means that you cannot search one part of the filesystem with this option on and part of it
with this option off (if you need to do that, you will need to issue two find commands instead, one
with the option and one without it).
-maxdepth levels
Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of directories below the command line arguments.
-noignore_readdir_race
Turns off the effect of -ignore_readdir_race.
-noleaf
Do not optimize by assuming that directories contain 2 fewer subdirectories than their hard link count.
This option is needed when searching filesystems that do not follow the Unix directory-link convention,
such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS filesystems or AFS volume mount points. Each directory on a normal Unix
filesystem has at least 2 hard links: its name and its `.' entry. Additionally, its subdirectories
(if any) each have a `..' entry linked to that directory. When find is examining a directory, after
it has statted 2 fewer subdirectories than the directory's link count, it knows that the rest of the
entries in the directory are non-directories (`leaf' files in the directory tree). If only the files'
names need to be examined, there is no need to stat them; this gives a significant increase in search
speed.
-regextype type
Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and -iregex tests which occur later on the
command line. Currently-implemented types are emacs (this is the default), posix-awk, posix-basic,
posix-egrep and posix-extended.
-version, --version
Print the find version number and exit.
-warn, -nowarn
Turn warning messages on or off. These warnings apply only to the command line usage, not to any con‐
ditions that find might encounter when it searches directories. The default behaviour corresponds to
-warn if standard input is a tty, and to -nowarn otherwise.
-xautofs
Don't descend directories on autofs filesystems.
-xdev Don't descend directories on other filesystems.
TESTS
Some tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison between the file currently being examined and
some reference file specified on the command line. When these tests are used, the interpretation of the ref‐
erence file is determined by the options -H, -L and -P and any previous -follow, but the reference file is
only examined once, at the time the command line is parsed. If the reference file cannot be examined (for
example, the stat(2) system call fails for it), an error message is issued, and find exits with a nonzero sta‐
tus.
Numeric arguments can be specified as
+n for greater than n,
-n for less than n,
File was last accessed n*24 hours ago. When find figures out how many 24-hour periods ago the file was
last accessed, any fractional part is ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to have been accessed
at least two days ago.
-cmin n
File's status was last changed n minutes ago.
-cnewer file
File's status was last changed more recently than file was modified. If file is a symbolic link and
the -H option or the -L option is in effect, the status-change time of the file it points to is always
used.
-ctime n
File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago. See the comments for -atime to understand how rounding
affects the interpretation of file status change times.
-empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.
-executable
Matches files which are executable and directories which are searchable (in a file name resolution
sense). This takes into account access control lists and other permissions artefacts which the -perm
test ignores. This test makes use of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers
which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client's kernel
and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server. Because this test is based
only on the result of the access(2) system call, there is no guarantee that a file for which this test
succeeds can actually be executed.
-false Always false.
-fstype type
File is on a filesystem of type type. The valid filesystem types vary among different versions of
Unix; an incomplete list of filesystem types that are accepted on some version of Unix or another is:
ufs, 4.2, 4.3, nfs, tmp, mfs, S51K, S52K. You can use -printf with the %F directive to see the types
of your filesystems.
-gid n File's numeric group ID is n.
-group gname
File belongs to group gname (numeric group ID allowed).
-ilname pattern
Like -lname, but the match is case insensitive. If the -L option or the -follow option is in effect,
this test returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.
-ipath pattern
Like -path. but the match is case insensitive.
-iregex pattern
Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.
-iwholename pattern
See -ipath. This alternative is less portable than -ipath.
-links n
File has n links.
-lname pattern
File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pattern. The metacharacters do not treat
`/' or `.' specially. If the -L option or the -follow option is in effect, this test returns false
unless the symbolic link is broken.
-mmin n
File's data was last modified n minutes ago.
-mtime n
File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago. See the comments for -atime to understand how rounding
affects the interpretation of file modification times.
-name pattern
Base of file name (the path with the leading directories removed) matches shell pattern pattern.
Because the leading directories are removed, the file names considered for a match with -name will
never include a slash, so `-name a/b' will never match anything (you probably need to use -path
instead). The metacharacters (`*', `?', and `[]') match a `.' at the start of the base name (this is a
change in findutils-4.2.2; see section STANDARDS CONFORMANCE below). To ignore a directory and the
files under it, use -prune; see an example in the description of -path. Braces are not recognised as
being special, despite the fact that some shells including Bash imbue braces with a special meaning in
shell patterns. The filename matching is performed with the use of the fnmatch(3) library function.
Don't forget to enclose the pattern in quotes in order to protect it from expansion by the shell.
-newer file
File was modified more recently than file. If file is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L
option is in effect, the modification time of the file it points to is always used.
-newerXY reference
Compares the timestamp of the current file with reference. The reference argument is normally the name
of a file (and one of its timestamps is used for the comparison) but it may also be a string describing
an absolute time. X and Y are placeholders for other letters, and these letters select which time
belonging to how reference is used for the comparison.
time is unknown.
-nogroup
No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.
-nouser
No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.
-path pattern
File name matches shell pattern pattern. The metacharacters do not treat `/' or `.' specially; so, for
example,
find . -path "./sr*sc"
will print an entry for a directory called `./src/misc' (if one exists). To ignore a whole directory
tree, use -prune rather than checking every file in the tree. For example, to skip the directory
`src/emacs' and all files and directories under it, and print the names of the other files found, do
something like this:
find . -path ./src/emacs -prune -o -print
Note that the pattern match test applies to the whole file name, starting from one of the start points
named on the command line. It would only make sense to use an absolute path name here if the relevant
start point is also an absolute path. This means that this command will never match anything:
find bar -path /foo/bar/myfile -print
Find compares the -path argument with the concatenation of a directory name and the base name of the
file it's examining. Since the concatenation will never end with a slash, -path arguments ending in a
slash will match nothing (except perhaps a start point specified on the command line). The predicate
-path is also supported by HP-UX find and will be in a forthcoming version of the POSIX standard.
-perm mode
File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic). Since an exact match is required, if you
want to use this form for symbolic modes, you may have to specify a rather complex mode string. For
example `-perm g=w' will only match files which have mode 0020 (that is, ones for which group write
permission is the only permission set). It is more likely that you will want to use the `/' or `-'
forms, for example `-perm -g=w', which matches any file with group write permission. See the EXAMPLES
section for some illustrative examples.
-perm -mode
All of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic modes are accepted in this form, and
this is usually the way in which would want to use them. You must specify `u', `g' or `o' if you use a
symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for some illustrative examples.
-perm /mode
Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file. Symbolic modes are accepted in this form. You
must specify `u', `g' or `o' if you use a symbolic mode. See the EXAMPLES section for some illustra‐
tive examples. If no permission bits in mode are set, this test matches any file (the idea here is to
be consistent with the behaviour of -perm -000).
-perm +mode
Deprecated, old way of searching for files with any of the permission bits in mode set. You should use
be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement
access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the
server.
-regex pattern
File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match on the whole path, not a search. For
example, to match a file named `./fubar3', you can use the regular expression `.*bar.' or `.*b.*3', but
not `f.*r3'. The regular expressions understood by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but
this can be changed with the -regextype option.
-samefile name
File refers to the same inode as name. When -L is in effect, this can include symbolic links.
-size n[cwbkMG]
File uses n units of space. The following suffixes can be used:
`b' for 512-byte blocks (this is the default if no suffix is used)
`c' for bytes
`w' for two-byte words
`k' for Kilobytes (units of 1024 bytes)
`M' for Megabytes (units of 1048576 bytes)
`G' for Gigabytes (units of 1073741824 bytes)
The size does not count indirect blocks, but it does count blocks in sparse files that are not actually
allocated. Bear in mind that the `%k' and `%b' format specifiers of -printf handle sparse files dif‐
ferently. The `b' suffix always denotes 512-byte blocks and never 1 Kilobyte blocks, which is differ‐
ent to the behaviour of -ls.
-true Always true.
-type c
File is of type c:
b block (buffered) special
c character (unbuffered) special
d directory
p named pipe (FIFO)
f regular file
l symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the -follow option is in effect, unless
-user uname
File is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).
-wholename pattern
See -path. This alternative is less portable than -path.
-writable
Matches files which are writable. This takes into account access control lists and other permissions
artefacts which the -perm test ignores. This test makes use of the access(2) system call, and so can
be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement
access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the
server.
-xtype c
The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link. For symbolic links: if the -H or -P option was
specified, true if the file is a link to a file of type c; if the -L option has been given, true if c
is `l'. In other words, for symbolic links, -xtype checks the type of the file that -type does not
check.
-context pattern
(SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pattern.
ACTIONS
-delete
Delete files; true if removal succeeded. If the removal failed, an error message is issued. If
-delete fails, find's exit status will be nonzero (when it eventually exits). Use of -delete automati‐
cally turns on the `-depth' option.
Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated as an expression, so putting -delete
first will make find try to delete everything below the starting points you specified. When testing a
find command line that you later intend to use with -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in
order to avoid later surprises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and
-delete together.
-exec command ;
Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following arguments to find are taken to be argu‐
ments to the command until an argument consisting of `;' is encountered. The string `{}' is replaced
by the current file name being processed everywhere it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just
in arguments where it is alone, as in some versions of find. Both of these constructions might need to
be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to protect them from expansion by the shell. See the EXAMPLES sec‐
tion for examples of the use of the -exec option. The specified command is run once for each matched
file. The command is executed in the starting directory. There are unavoidable security problems
surrounding use of the -exec action; you should use the -execdir option instead.
-exec command {} +
This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected files, but the command line
the -exec action, the `+' form of -execdir will build a command line to process more than one matched
file, but any given invocation of command will only list files that exist in the same subdirectory. If
you use this option, you must ensure that your $PATH environment variable does not reference `.'; oth‐
erwise, an attacker can run any commands they like by leaving an appropriately-named file in a direc‐
tory in which you will run -execdir. The same applies to having entries in $PATH which are empty or
which are not absolute directory names.
-fls file
True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created, even if the predi‐
cate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters
in filenames are handled.
-fprint file
True; print the full file name into file file. If file does not exist when find is run, it is created;
if it does exist, it is truncated. The file names `/dev/stdout' and `/dev/stderr' are handled spe‐
cially; they refer to the standard output and standard error output, respectively. The output file is
always created, even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for informa‐
tion about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprint0 file
True; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created, even if the
predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual char‐
acters in filenames are handled.
-fprintf file format
True; like -printf but write to file like -fprint. The output file is always created, even if the
predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual char‐
acters in filenames are handled.
-ls True; list current file in ls -dils format on standard output. The block counts are of 1K blocks,
unless the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, in which case 512-byte blocks are used. See
the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-ok command ;
Like -exec but ask the user first. If the user agrees, run the command. Otherwise just return false.
If the command is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular expressions to determine if it is an
affirmative or negative response. This regular expression is obtained from the system if the
`POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, or otherwise from find's message translations. If the
system has no suitable definition, find's own definition will be used. In either case, the interpre‐
tation of the regular expression itself will be affected by the environment variables 'LC_CTYPE' (char‐
acter classes) and 'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equivalence classes).
-print0
True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character (instead of the
newline character that -print uses). This allows file names that contain newlines or other types of
white space to be correctly interpreted by programs that process the find output. This option corre‐
sponds to the -0 option of xargs.
-printf format
True; print format on the standard output, interpreting `\' escapes and `%' directives. Field widths
and precisions can be specified as with the `printf' C function. Please note that many of the fields
are printed as %s rather than %d, and this may mean that flags don't work as you might expect. This
also means that the `-' flag does work (it forces fields to be left-aligned). Unlike -print, -printf
does not add a newline at the end of the string. The escapes and directives are:
\a Alarm bell.
\b Backspace.
\c Stop printing from this format immediately and flush the output.
\f Form feed.
\n Newline.
\r Carriage return.
\t Horizontal tab.
\v Vertical tab.
\0 ASCII NUL.
\\ A literal backslash (`\').
\NNN The character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal).
A `\' character followed by any other character is treated as an ordinary character, so they both are
printed.
%% A literal percent sign.
%a File's last access time in the format returned by the C `ctime' function.
%Ak File's last access time in the format specified by k, which is either `@' or a directive for the
C `strftime' function. The possible values for k are listed below; some of them might not be
available on all systems, due to differences in `strftime' between systems.
@ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with fractional part.
Time fields:
H hour (00..23)
I hour (01..12)
T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
+ Date and time, separated by `+', for example `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'. This is a GNU
extension. The time is given in the current timezone (which may be affected by setting
the TZ environment variable). The seconds field includes a fractional part.
X locale's time representation (H:M:S)
Z time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable
Date fields:
a locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
A locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)
b locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
B locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)
c locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989). The format is the same as for
ctime(3) and so to preserve compatibility with that format, there is no fractional part
in the seconds field.
d day of month (01..31)
D date (mm/dd/yy)
h same as b
j day of year (001..366)
m month (01..12)
U week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
w day of week (0..6)
W week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
x locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
y last two digits of year (00..99)
Y year (1970...)
%b The amount of disk space used for this file in 512-byte blocks. Since disk space is allocated in
multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually greater than %s/512, but it can also be
smaller if the file is a sparse file.
%c File's last status change time in the format returned by the C `ctime' function.
%Ck File's last status change time in the format specified by k, which is the same as for %A.
%h Leading directories of file's name (all but the last element). If the file name contains no
slashes (since it is in the current directory) the %h specifier expands to ".".
%H Command line argument under which file was found.
%i File's inode number (in decimal).
%k The amount of disk space used for this file in 1K blocks. Since disk space is allocated in mul‐
tiples of the filesystem block size this is usually greater than %s/1024, but it can also be
smaller if the file is a sparse file.
%l Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a symbolic link).
%m File's permission bits (in octal). This option uses the `traditional' numbers which most Unix
implementations use, but if your particular implementation uses an unusual ordering of octal
permissions bits, you will see a difference between the actual value of the file's mode and the
output of %m. Normally you will want to have a leading zero on this number, and to do this,
you should use the # flag (as in, for example, `%#m').
%M File's permissions (in symbolic form, as for ls). This directive is supported in findutils
4.2.5 and later.
%n Number of hard links to file.
%p File's name.
%P File's name with the name of the command line argument under which it was found removed.
%s File's size in bytes.
%S File's sparseness. This is calculated as (BLOCKSIZE*st_blocks / st_size). The exact value you
will get for an ordinary file of a certain length is system-dependent. However, normally sparse
files will have values less than 1.0, and files which use indirect blocks may have a value which
is greater than 1.0. The value used for BLOCKSIZE is system-dependent, but is usually 512
bytes. If the file size is zero, the value printed is undefined. On systems which lack sup‐
port for st_blocks, a file's sparseness is assumed to be 1.0.
%t File's last modification time in the format returned by the C `ctime' function.
%Tk File's last modification time in the format specified by k, which is the same as for %A.
%u File's user name, or numeric user ID if the user has no name.
%U File's numeric user ID.
%y File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't happen)
%Y File's type (like %y), plus follow symlinks: L=loop, N=nonexistent
%Z (SELinux only) file's security context.
%{ %[ %(
Reserved for future use.
dled.
-prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it. If -depth is given, false; no effect.
Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.
-quit Exit immediately. No child processes will be left running, but no more paths specified on the command
line will be processed. For example, find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit will print only /tmp/foo.
Any command lines which have been built up with -execdir ... {} + will be invoked before find exits.
The exit status may or may not be zero, depending on whether an error has already occurred.
UNUSUAL FILENAMES
Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is under the control of other users. This
includes file names, sizes, modification times and so forth. File names are a potential problem since they
can contain any character except `\0' and `/'. Unusual characters in file names can do unexpected and often
undesirable things to your terminal (for example, changing the settings of your function keys on some termi‐
nals). Unusual characters are handled differently by various actions, as described below.
-print0, -fprint0
Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output is going to a terminal.
-ls, -fls
Unusual characters are always escaped. White space, backslash, and double quote characters are printed
using C-style escaping (for example `\f', `\"'). Other unusual characters are printed using an octal
escape. Other printable characters (for -ls and -fls these are the characters between octal 041 and
0176) are printed as-is.
-printf, -fprintf
If the output is not going to a terminal, it is printed as-is. Otherwise, the result depends on which
directive is in use. The directives %D, %F, %g, %G, %H, %Y, and %y expand to values which are not
under control of files' owners, and so are printed as-is. The directives %a, %b, %c, %d, %i, %k, %m,
%M, %n, %s, %t, %u and %U have values which are under the control of files' owners but which cannot be
used to send arbitrary data to the terminal, and so these are printed as-is. The directives %f, %h,
%l, %p and %P are quoted. This quoting is performed in the same way as for GNU ls. This is not the
same quoting mechanism as the one used for -ls and -fls. If you are able to decide what format to use
for the output of find then it is normally better to use `\0' as a terminator than to use newline, as
file names can contain white space and newline characters. The setting of the `LC_CTYPE' environment
variable is used to determine which characters need to be quoted.
-print, -fprint
Quoting is handled in the same way as for -printf and -fprintf. If you are using find in a script or
in a situation where the matched files might have arbitrary names, you should consider using -print0
instead of -print.
The -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is. This may change in a future release.
-not expr
Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 expr2
Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied "and"; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1
is false.
expr1 -a expr2
Same as expr1 expr2.
expr1 -and expr2
Same as expr1 expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 -o expr2
Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
expr1 -or expr2
Same as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 , expr2
List; both expr1 and expr2 are always evaluated. The value of expr1 is discarded; the value of the
list is the value of expr2. The comma operator can be useful for searching for several different types
of thing, but traversing the filesystem hierarchy only once. The -fprintf action can be used to list
the various matched items into several different output files.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable. The
following options are specified in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition):
-H This option is supported.
-L This option is supported.
-name This option is supported, but POSIX conformance depends on the POSIX conformance of the system's
fnmatch(3) library function. As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for exam‐
ple) will match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC interpretation 126 requires this. This is a change
from previous versions of findutils.
-type Supported. POSIX specifies `b', `c', `d', `l', `p', `f' and `s'. GNU find also supports `D', repre‐
senting a Door, where the OS provides these.
-perm Supported. If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not set, some mode arguments (for example
+a+x) which are not valid in POSIX are supported for backward-compatibility.
Other predicates
The predicates -atime, -ctime, -depth, -group, -links, -mtime, -nogroup, -nouser, -print, -prune,
-size, -user and -xdev `-atime', `-ctime', `-depth', `-group', `-links', `-mtime', `-nogroup',
`-nouser', `-perm', `-print', `-prune', `-size', `-user' and `-xdev', are all supported.
The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the `and' and `or' operators ( -a, -o).
All other options, predicates, expressions and so forth are extensions beyond the POSIX standard. Many of
these extensions are not unique to GNU find, however.
The POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:
The find utility shall detect infinite loops; that is, entering a previously visited directory that is
an ancestor of the last file encountered. When it detects an infinite loop, find shall write a diagnos‐
tic message to standard error and shall either recover its position in the hierarchy or terminate.
GNU find complies with these requirements. The link count of directories which contain entries which are hard
links to an ancestor will often be lower than they otherwise should be. This can mean that GNU find will
sometimes optimise away the visiting of a subdirectory which is actually a link to an ancestor. Since find
does not actually enter such a subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic message. Although
this behaviour may be somewhat confusing, it is unlikely that anybody actually depends on this behaviour. If
the leaf optimisation has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry will always be examined and the
diagnostic message will be issued where it is appropriate. Symbolic links cannot be used to create filesystem
cycles as such, but if the -L option or the -follow option is in use, a diagnostic message is issued when find
encounters a loop of symbolic links. As with loops containing hard links, the leaf optimisation will often
mean that find knows that it doesn't need to call stat() or chdir() on the symbolic link, so this diagnostic
is frequently not necessary.
The -d option is supported for compatibility with various BSD systems, but you should use the POSIX-compliant
option -depth instead.
The POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable does not affect the behaviour of the -regex or -iregex tests because
those tests aren't specified in the POSIX standard.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
LANG Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null.
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization vari‐
ables.
LC_COLLATE
The POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pattern matching to be used for the -name
option. GNU find uses the fnmatch(3) library function, and so support for `LC_COLLATE' depends on the
system library. This variable also affects the interpretation of the response to -ok; while the
`LC_MESSAGES' variable selects the actual pattern used to interpret the response to -ok, the interpre‐
Determines the locale to be used for internationalised messages. If the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment
variable is set, this also determines the interpretation of the response to the prompt made by the -ok
action.
NLSPATH
Determines the location of the internationalisation message catalogues.
PATH Affects the directories which are searched to find the executables invoked by -exec, -execdir, -ok and
-okdir.
POSIXLY_CORRECT
Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls. If POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, blocks are units of 512
bytes. Otherwise they are units of 1024 bytes.
Setting this variable also turns off warning messages (that is, implies -nowarn) by default, because
POSIX requires that apart from the output for -ok, all messages printed on stderr are diagnostics and
must result in a non-zero exit status.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just like -perm /zzz if +zzz is not a valid sym‐
bolic mode. When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, such constructs are treated as an error.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made by the -ok action is interpreted according
to the system's message catalogue, as opposed to according to find's own message translations.
TZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format directives of -printf and -fprintf.
BINARIES
The findutils source distribution contains two different implementations of find. The older implementation
descends the file system recursively, while the newer one uses fts(3). Both are normally installed.
If the option --without-fts was passed to configure, the recursive implementation is installed as find and the
fts-based implementation is installed as ftsfind. Otherwise, the fts-based implementation is installed as
find and the recursive implementation is installed as oldfind.
EXAMPLES
find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them. Note that this will work incorrectly if
there are any filenames containing newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces.
find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing filenames in such a way that
file or directory names containing single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly handled. The
-name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid having to call stat(2) on every file.
find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;
Runs `file' on every file in or below the current directory. Notice that the braces are enclosed in single
Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-four hours. This command
works this way because the time since each file was last modified is divided by 24 hours and any remainder is
discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0, a file will have to have a modification in the past which is
less than 24 hours ago.
find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
Search for files which are executable but not readable.
find . -perm 664
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner, and group, but which other users can
read but not write to. Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits set (for example if
someone can execute the file) will not be matched.
find . -perm -664
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner and group, and which other users can
read, without regard to the presence of any extra permission bits (for example the executable bit). This will
match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
find . -perm /222
Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their group, or anybody else).
find . -perm /220
find . -perm /u+w,g+w
find . -perm /u=w,g=w
All three of these commands do the same thing, but the first one uses the octal representation of the file
mode, and the other two use the symbolic form. These commands all search for files which are writable by
either their owner or their group. The files don't have to be writable by both the owner and group to be
matched; either will do.
find . -perm -220
find . -perm -g+w,u+w
Both these commands do the same thing; search for files which are writable by both their owner and their
group.
find . -perm -444 -perm /222 ! -perm /111
find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w ! -perm /a+x
These two commands both search for files that are readable for everybody ( -perm -444 or -perm -a+r), have at
least one write bit set ( -perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not executable for anybody ( ! -perm /111 and !
-perm /a+x respectively).
right hand side of the -o is in parentheses only for clarity. It emphasises that the -print0 action takes
place only for things that didn't have -prune applied to them. Because the default `and' condition between
tests binds more tightly than -o, this is the default anyway, but the parentheses help to show what is going
on.
find repo/ -exec test -d {}/.svn \; -or \
-exec test -d {}/.git \; -or -exec test -d {}/CVS \; \
-print -prune
Given the following directory of projects and their associated SCM administrative directories, perform an
efficient search for the projects' roots:
repo/project1/CVS
repo/gnu/project2/.svn
repo/gnu/project3/.svn
repo/gnu/project3/src/.svn
repo/project4/.git
In this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into directories that have already been discovered (for
example we do not search project3/src because we already found project3/.svn), but ensures sibling directories
(project2 and project3) are found.
EXIT STATUS
find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, greater than 0 if errors occur. This is
deliberately a very broad description, but if the return value is non-zero, you should not rely on the cor‐
rectness of the results of find.
SEE ALSO
locate(1), locatedb(5), updatedb(1), xargs(1), chmod(1), fnmatch(3), regex(7), stat(2), lstat(2), ls(1),
printf(3), strftime(3), ctime(3), Finding Files (on-line in Info, or printed).
HISTORY
As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for example) used in filename patterns will
match a leading `.', because IEEE POSIX interpretation 126 requires this.
As of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of none.
Nanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.
As of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to a nonzero value when it fails. However,
find will not exit immediately. Previously, find's exit status was unaffected by the failure of -delete.
Feature Added in Also occurs in
-newerXY 4.3.3 BSD
-D 4.3.1
-O 4.3.1
-readable 4.3.0
-writable 4.3.0
-executable 4.3.0
-regextype 4.2.24
-exec ... + 4.2.12 POSIX
-fls 4.0
-ilname 3.8
-iname 3.8
-ipath 3.8
-iregex 3.8
The syntax -perm +MODE does not work as expected in findutils-4.5.11 and it was removed in findutils-4.5.12,
in favour of -perm /MODE. The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since findutils-4.2.21 which was released in
2005.
NON-BUGS
$ find . -name *.c -print
find: paths must precede expression
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]
This happens because *.c has been expanded by the shell resulting in find actually receiving a command line
like this:
find . -name bigram.c code.c frcode.c locate.c -print
That command is of course not going to work. Instead of doing things this way, you should enclose the pattern
in quotes or escape the wildcard:
$ find . -name '*.c' -print
$ find . -name \*.c -print
BUGS
There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX standard specifies for find, which there‐
fore cannot be fixed. For example, the -exec action is inherently insecure, and -execdir should be used
instead. Please see Finding Files for more information.
The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
The best way to report a bug is to use the form at http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils. The reason
for this is that you will then be able to track progress in fixing the problem. Other comments about find(1)
and about the findutils package in general can be sent to the bug-findutils mailing list. To join the list,
send email to [email protected].
FIND(1)
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