Unix/Linux "find" Command Tutorial - The Diigo Meta page

• 04 Mar 15
  

  Roman Dryndik
• 13 Jan 15
  

  ihaku4
  • The “\(” and “\)” are just parenthesis used for grouping, and escaped from the shell.  The “‑o” means Boolean OR.
• 04 Nov 14
  

  budbjames

  find linux unix tutorial howto command sysadmin

• 02 Nov 14
  

  skookiesprite

  • One of my favorite of the find criteria is used to locate files modified less than 10 minutes ago.  I use this right after using some system administration tool, to learn which files got changed by that tool: 

      

    find / -mmin -10
• 07 Aug 14
  

  uscubeta

  CurrentClasses CompC_project

• 14 Jun 13
  

  salvianoleao

  bash unix commands Shell

• 13 Jun 13
  

  Jon Schmid

  Better unix find tutorial.

  linux find

  • You can search for other criteria beside the name.  Also you can list multiple search criteria.  When you have multiple criteria, any found files must match all listed criteria.  That is, there is an implied Boolean AND operator between the listed search criteria.  find also allows OR and NOT Boolean operators, as well as grouping, to combine search criteria in powerful ways (not shown here.) 

      

     Here's an example using two search criteria:
• 31 May 13
  

  Todd Zimmerman

  linux find command reference

• 30 May 13
  

  endre domiczi

  "A Unix/Linux “find” Command Tutorial"

  find command howto

• 12 Jun 12
  

  linux find unix tutorial

• 25 May 12
  

  mohammed shannaq

  find linux command samples and manual

  linux find tutorial shell sysadmin

• 04 May 12
  

  Joe Miller

  linux unix

• 30 Mar 12
  

  Vincent Costa

  linux

• 16 Mar 12
  

  yuanye
  • find will search any set of directories you specify for files that match the supplied search criteria. 
  •   The search is recursive in that it will search all subdirectories too.

  • For example where-to-look defaults to . (that is, the current working directory), criteria defaults to none (that is, show all files), and what-to-do (known as the find action) defaults to -print (that is, display the names of found files to standard output).  Technically the criteria and actions are all known as find primaries. 

      
  • redirect the error messages so you don't have to see them at all:

  • find / -name foo 2>/dev/null

      

     You can specify as many places to search as you wish: 

      

    find /tmp /var/tmp . $HOME -name foo

  3 more annotations...

• 29 Jul 11
  

  Cristian Riffo

  ubuntu files copy

• 05 Jul 11
  

  Thomas ██████

  Unix/Linux "find" Command Tutorial: http://bit.ly/k7lETi

• 13 May 11
  

  Ryan Baldwin

  find linux

• 06 May 11
  

  robpaller

  linux unix howto

• 07 Feb 11
  

  kerimbasol

  linux find unix tutorial shell howto command sysadmin

• 09 May 10
  

  thinkwierd

  linux

• 28 Apr 10
  

  Brian Hannah

  unix

• 23 Oct 09
  

  Gubbe Sue

  linux find delicious

• 21 Oct 09
  

  Work UnixCommand

• 06 Oct 09
  

  linux tutorial unix shell howto sysadmin tutorials commands find command

• 02 Oct 09
  

  Raina Dong

  linux find

• 09 Sep 09
  

  scotthernandez

  find linux command sysadmin howto shell examples

• 02 Sep 09
  

  Kevin Basarab

  linux unix tutorial shell find

• 25 Aug 09
  

  Greg Gannicott

  linux find command-line unix ksh

• 

  Harjeet Singh

  A Unix/Linux "find" Command Tutorial

  p1 tips tools linux find

  • For example: 

     

    find . -mtime 0   # find files modified between now and 1 day ago                   # (i.e., within the past 24 hours) find . -mtime -1  # find files modified less than 1 day ago                   # (i.e., within the past 24 hours, as before) find . -mtime 1   # find files modified between 24 and 48 hours ago find . -mtime +1  # find files modified more than 48 hours ago  find . -mmin +5 -mmin -10 # find files modifed between                           # 6 and 9 minutes ago 

  • find / -type f -mtime -7 | xargs tar -rf weekly_incremental.tar gzip weekly_incremental.tar

     

     will find any regular files (i.e., not directories or other special files) with the criteria -type f, and only those modified seven or fewer days ago (-mtime -7).  Note the use of xargs, a handy utility that coverts a stream of input (in this case the output of find) into command line arguments for the supplied command (in this case tar, used to create a backup archive). 

      

     Using the tar option -c is dangerous here;  xargs may invoke tar several times if there are many files found and each -c will cause tar to over-write the previous invocation.  The -r option appends files to an archive.  Other options such as those that would permit filenames containing spaces would be useful in a production quality backup script. 

  • find / -type f -mtime -7 | xargs tar -rf weekly_incremental.tar gzip weekly_incremental.tar

     

     will find any regular files (i.e., not directories or other special files) with the criteria -type f, and only those modified seven or fewer days ago (-mtime -7).  Note the use of xargs, a handy utility that coverts a stream of input (in this case the output of find) into command line arguments for the supplied command (in this case tar, used to create a backup archive). 

      

     Using the tar option -c is dangerous here;  xargs may invoke tar several times if there are many files found and each -c will cause tar to over-write the previous invocation.  The -r option appends files to an archive.  Other options such as those that would permit filenames containing spaces would be useful in a production quality backup script. 

  • -maxdepth is a Gnu extension.  On a modern, POSIX version of find you could use this: 

      

    find . -path './*' -prune ...

      

     On any version of find you can use this more complex (but portable) code: 

      

    find . ! -name . -prune ...

      

     which says to prune (don't decend into) any directories except .. 

  2 more annotations...

• 13 Aug 09
  

  Ramesh Babu

  find linux

• 01 Jul 09
  

  Outmyth OUT of MY THoughts
• 29 May 09
  

  chinsan Huang

  command shortcut:find unix_commands automation tips unix ssh tutorial sysadmin find howto

• 23 Apr 09
  

  arleyl

  linux find unix howto shell

• 16 Apr 09
  

  willywongi

  linux unix tutorial find

• 05 Apr 09
  

  mackp1967

  7lsi find linux howto

• 25 Mar 09
  

  David Greenberg

  LINUX_COMMAND_INFO

• 17 Feb 09
  

  Valent Turkovic

  The find command is used to locate files on a Unix or Linux system. find will search any set of directories you specify for files that match the supplied search criteria. You can search for files by name, owner, group, type, permissions, date, and other

  linux sysadmin cli shell unix find

• 03 Feb 09
  

  clizzin

  Because despite the number of times I need to use it, I never remember how the damn thing works.

  tutorial unix

• 21 Jan 09
  

  Rod Green

  unix_linux findcommand

• 01 Dec 08
  

  Scott Nelson

  linux howto tutorial bash scripting find

• 22 Nov 08
  

  Mike Gifford

  find / -name core -exec /bin/rm -f '{}' +

  unix tutorials tips shell ssh software

• 08 Oct 08
  

  harry palmer

  unix linux command-line find tutorials

  • Locating Files:

      

     

     The find command is used to locate files on a Unix or Linux system.  find will search any set of directories you specify for files that match the supplied search criteria.  You can search for files by name, owner, group, type, permissions, date, and other criteria.  The search is recursive in that it will search all subdirectories too.  The syntax looks like this: 

      

    find where-to-look criteria what-to-do

      

     All arguments to find are optional, and there are defaults for all parts.  (This may depend on which version of find is used.  Here we discuss the freely available GNU version of find, which is the version available on YborStudent.)  For example where-to-look defaults to . (that is, the current working directory), criteria defaults to none (that is, show all files), and what-to-do (known as the find action) defaults to -print (that is, display found files to standard output). 
• 07 Oct 08
  

  Niko Schmuck

  Good tipp compilation (also together with tar).

  unix tutorials sysadmin shell tutorial

• 

  Hugo Zonda

  Good tipp compilation (also together with tar).

  unix tutorials sysadmin shell tutorial

• 17 Sep 08
  

  mahesh_koli

  unix find

• 26 Aug 08
  

  unix linux find command command-line tutorial howto

• 07 Aug 08
  

  mgjoni

  find linux

• 27 Jul 08
  

  aklimatizer

  macintosh

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.