FIND(1) User Commands FIND(1)

NAME

find - find files

SYNOPSIS

/usr/bin/find [-E] [-H | -L] path... expression


/usr/xpg4/bin/find [-H | -L] path... expression

DESCRIPTION

The find utility recursively descends the directory hierarchy for each
path seeking files that match a Boolean expression written in the
primaries specified below.


find is able to descend to arbitrary depths in a file hierarchy and does
not fail due to path length limitations (unless a path operand specified
by the application exceeds PATH_MAX requirements).


find detects infinite loops; that is, entering a previously visited
directory that is an ancestor of the last file encountered.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

-E
Interpret regular expressions followed by -regex and -iregex
primaries as extended regular expressions.


-H
Causes the file information and file type evaluated for each
symbolic link encountered on the command line to be those of the
file referenced by the link, and not the link itself. If the
referenced file does not exist, the file information and type is
for the link itself. File information for all symbolic links not on
the command line is that of the link itself.


-L
Causes the file information and file type evaluated for each
symbolic link to be those of the file referenced by the link, and
not the link itself. See NOTES.


Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options -H and -L is
not considered an error. The last option specified determines the
behavior of the utility.

OPERANDS

The following operands are supported:

path
A pathname of a starting point in the directory hierarchy.


expression
The first argument that starts with a -, or is a ! or a (,
and all subsequent arguments are interpreted as an
expression made up of the following primaries and
operators. In the descriptions, wherever n is used as a
primary argument, it is interpreted as a decimal integer
optionally preceded by a plus (+) or minus (-) sign, as
follows:

+n
more than n


n
exactly n


-n
less than n

Expressions

Valid expressions are:

-acl
True if the file have additional ACLs defined.


-amin n
File was last accessed n minutes ago.


-atime n
True if the file was accessed n days ago. The access
time of directories in path is changed by find itself.


-cmin n
File's status was last changed n minutes ago.


-cpio device
Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio
format (5120-byte records).


-ctime n
True if the file's status was changed n days ago.


-delete
Always true. Deletes the files and folders found
recursing from the current directory. This option
implicitly enables -depth and is incompatible with
following symlinks, if specified. For security reasons,
relative paths starting with '/' are not allowed.


-depth
Always true. Causes descent of the directory hierarchy
to be done so that all entries in a directory are acted
on before the directory itself. This can be useful when
find is used with cpio(1) to transfer files that are
contained in directories without write permission.


-exec command
True if the executed command returns a zero value as
exit status. The end of command must be punctuated by an
escaped semicolon (;). A command argument {} is replaced
by the current pathname. If the last argument to -exec
is {} and you specify + rather than the semicolon (;),
the command is invoked fewer times, with {} replaced by
groups of pathnames. If any invocation of the command
returns a non-zero value as exit status, find returns a
non-zero exit status.


-follow
Always true and always evaluated no matter where it
appears in expression. The behavior is unspecified if
-follow is used when the find command is invoked with
either the -H or the -L option. Causes symbolic links
to be followed. When following symbolic links, find
keeps track of the directories visited so that it can
detect infinite loops. For example, such a loop would
occur if a symbolic link pointed to an ancestor. This
expression should not be used with the find-type l
expression. See NOTES.


-fstype type
True if the filesystem to which the file belongs is of
type type.


-group gname
True if the file belongs to the group gname. If gname is
numeric and there's no such group name, it is taken as a
group ID.


-groupacl gname
True if the file's ACL contains an entry for the group
gname. If gname is numeric and there's no such group
name, it is taken as a group ID.


-iname pattern
Like -name, but the match is case insensitive.


-inum n
True if the file has inode number n.


-ipath pattern
Like -path, but the match is case insensitive.


-iregex pattern
Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.


-links n
True if the file has n links.


-local
True if the file system type is not a remote file system
type as defined in the /etc/dfs/fstypes file. nfs is
used as the default remote filesystem type if the
/etc/dfs/fstypes file is not present. The -local option
descends the hierarchy of non-local directories. See
EXAMPLES for an example of how to search for local files
without descending.


-ls
Always true. Prints current pathname together with its
associated statistics. These include (respectively):

o inode number

o size in kilobytes (1024 bytes)

o protection mode

o number of hard links

o user

o group

o size in bytes

o modification time.
If the file is a special file, the size field instead
contains the major and minor device numbers.

If the file is a symbolic link, the pathname of the
linked-to file is printed preceded by `->'. The format
is identical to that of ls -gilds (see ls(1B)).

Formatting is done internally, without executing the ls
program.


-maxdepth n
Always true; descend at most n directory levels below
the command line arguments. If any -maxdepth primary is
specified, it applies to the entire expression even if
it would not normally be evaluated. -maxdepth 0 limits
the whole search to the command line arguments.


-mindepth n
Always true; do not apply any tests or actions at levels
less than n. If any -mindepth primary is specified, it
applies to the entire expression even if it would not
normally be evaluated. -mindepth 1 processes all but
the command line arguments.


-mmin n
File's data was last modified n minutes ago.


-mount
Always true. Restricts the search to the file system
containing the directory specified. Does not list mount
points to other file systems.


-mtime n
True if the file's data was modified n days ago.


-name pattern
True if pattern matches the basename of the current file
name. Normal shell file name generation characters (see
sh(1)) can be used. A backslash (\) is used as an escape
character within the pattern. The pattern should be
escaped or quoted when find is invoked from the shell.

Unless the character '.' is explicitly specified in the
beginning of pattern, a current file name beginning with
'.' does not match pattern when using /usr/bin/find.
/usr/xpg4/bin/find does not make this distinction;
wildcard file name generation characters can match file
names beginning with '.'.


-ncpio device
Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio
-c format (5120 byte records).


-newer file
True if the current file has been modified more recently
than the argument file.


-nogroup
True if the file belongs to non-existing group.


-nouser
True if the file belongs to non-existing user.


-ok command
Like -exec, except that the generated command line is
printed with a question mark first, and is executed only
if the response is affirmative.


-path
Like -name, but matches the entire file path and not
just basename, and without any special treatment of
leading periods.


-perm [-]mode
The mode argument is used to represent file mode bits.
It is identical in format to the symbolic mode operand,
symbolic_mode_list, described in chmod(1), and is
interpreted as follows. To start, a template is assumed
with all file mode bits cleared. An op symbol of:

+
Set the appropriate mode bits in the template


-
Clear the appropriate bits


=
Set the appropriate mode bits, without regard to
the contents of the file mode creation mask of
the process

The op symbol of - cannot be the first character of
mode, to avoid ambiguity with the optional leading
hyphen. Since the initial mode is all bits off, there
are no symbolic modes that need to use - as the first
character.

If the hyphen is omitted, the primary evaluates as true
when the file permission bits exactly match the value of
the resulting template.

Otherwise, if mode is prefixed by a hyphen, the primary
evaluates as true if at least all the bits in the
resulting template are set in the file permission bits.


-perm [-]onum
True if the file permission flags exactly match the
octal number onum (see chmod(1)). If onum is prefixed by
a minus sign (-), only the bits that are set in onum are
compared with the file permission flags, and the
expression evaluates true if they match.


-print
Always true. Causes the current pathname to be printed.


-print0
Always true. Causes the current pathname to be printed,
terminated by an ASCII NUL character (character code 0)
instead of a newline.


-prune
Always yields true. Does not examine any directories or
files in the directory structure below the pattern just
matched. (See EXAMPLES). If -depth is specified, -prune
has no effect.


-regex pattern
True if the full path of the file matches pattern using
regular expressions.


-size n[c]
True if the file is n blocks long (512 bytes per block).
If n is followed by a c, the size is in bytes.


-type c
True if the type of the file is c, where c is b, c, d,
D, f, l, p, or s for block special file, character
special file, directory, door, plain file, symbolic
link, fifo (named pipe), or socket, respectively.


-user uname
True if the file belongs to the user uname. If uname is
numeric and there's no such user name, it is taken as a
user ID.


-useracl uname
True if the file's ACL contains an entry for the user
uname. If uname is numeric and there's no such user
name, it is taken as a user ID.


-xdev
Same as the -mount primary.


-xattr
True if the file has extended attributes.

Complex Expressions

The primaries can be combined using the following operators (in order of
decreasing precedence):

1)(expression)

True if the parenthesized expression is true (parentheses are special
to the shell and must be escaped).


2)!expression

The negation of a primary (! is the unary not operator).


3) expression[-a] expression

Concatenation of primaries (the and operation is implied by the
juxtaposition of two primaries).


4) expression-oexpression

Alternation of primaries (-o is the or operator).


When you use find in conjunction with cpio, if you use the -L option with
cpio, you must use the -L option or the -follow primitive with find and
vice versa. Otherwise the results are unspecified.


If no expression is present, -print is used as the expression.
Otherwise, if the specified expression does not contain any of the
primaries -exec, -ok, -ls, or -print, the specified expression is
effectively replaced by:


(specified) -print


The -user, -group, and -newer primaries each evaluate their respective
arguments only once. Invocation of command specified by -exec or -ok does
not affect subsequent primaries on the same file.

USAGE

See largefile(7) for the description of the behavior of find when
encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte (2^31 bytes).

EXAMPLES

Example 1: Writing Out the Hierarchy Directory

The following commands are equivalent:


example% find .
example% find . -print


They both write out the entire directory hierarchy from the current
directory.

Example 2: Removing Files

The following command removes all files in your home directory named
a.out or *.o that have not been accessed for a week:


example% find $HOME \( -name a.out -o -name '*.o' \) \
-atime +7 -exec rm {} \;

Example 3: Printing All File Names But Skipping SCCS Directories

The following command recursively print all file names in the current
directory and below, but skipping SCCS directories:


example% find . -name SCCS -prune -o -print

Example 4: Printing all file names and the SCCS directory name

Recursively print all file names in the current directory and below,
skipping the contents of SCCS directories, but printing out the SCCS
directory name:


example% find . -print -name SCCS -prune

Example 5: Testing for the Newer File

The following command is basically equivalent to the -nt extension to
test(1):


example$ if [ -n "$(find
file1 -prune -newer file2)" ]; then

printf %s\\n "file1 is newer than file2"

Example 6: Selecting a File Using 24-hour Mode

The descriptions of -atime, -ctime, and -mtime use the terminology n
``24-hour periods''. For example, a file accessed at 23:59 is selected
by:


example% find . -atime -1 -print


at 00:01 the next day (less than 24 hours later, not more than one day
ago). The midnight boundary between days has no effect on the 24-hour
calculation.

Example 7: Printing Files Matching a User's Permission Mode

The following command recursively print all file names whose permission
mode exactly matches read, write, and execute access for user, and read
and execute access for group and other:


example% find . -perm u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx


The above could alternatively be specified as follows:


example% find . -perm a=rwx,g-w,o-w

Example 8: Printing Files with Write Access for other

The following command recursively print all file names whose permission
includes, but is not limited to, write access for other:


example% find . -perm -o+w

Example 9: Printing Local Files without Descending Non-local Directories

example% find . ! -local -prune -o -print

Example 10: Printing the Files in the Name Space Possessing Extended

Attributes

example% find . -xattr

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of find: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

PATH
Determine the location of the utility_name for the -exec and -ok
primaries.


Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular expression
defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category of the user's
locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category defines the
behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character collating
elements used in the expression defined for yesexpr. The locale specified
in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data a characters, the behavior of character classes used
in the expression defined for the yesexpr. See locale(7).

EXIT STATUS

The following exit values are returned:

0
All path operands were traversed successfully.


>0
An error occurred.

FILES

/etc/passwd
Password file


/etc/group
Group file


/etc/dfs/fstypes
File that registers distributed file system packages

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


+--------------------+-------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+--------------------+-------------------+
|CSI | Enabled |
+--------------------+-------------------+
|Interface Stability | Committed |
+--------------------+-------------------+
|Standard | See standards(7). |
+--------------------+-------------------+

SEE ALSO

chmod(1), cpio(1), sh(1), test(1), ls(1B), stat(2), umask(2), acl(7),
attributes(7), environ(7), fsattr(7), largefile(7), locale(7), regex(7),
standards(7)

WARNINGS

The following options are obsolete and will not be supported in future
releases:

-cpio device
Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio
format (5120-byte records).


-ncpio device
Always true. Writes the current file on device in cpio
-c format (5120-byte records).

NOTES

When using find to determine files modified within a range of time, use
the -mtime argument before the -print argument. Otherwise, find gives all
files.


Some files that might be under the Solaris root file system are actually
mount points for virtual file systems, such as mntfs or namefs. When
comparing against a ufs file system, such files are not selected if
-mount or -xdev is specified in the find expression.


Using the -L or -follow option is not recommended when descending a file-
system hierarchy that is under the control of other users. In particular,
when using -exec, symbolic links can lead the find command out of the
hierarchy in which it started. Using -type is not sufficient to restrict
the type of files on which the -exec command operates, because there is
an inherent race condition between the type-check performed by the find
command and the time the executed command operates on the file argument.

August 23, 2020 FIND(1)