Windows PowerShell command on Get-command find

Manual Pages for UNIX Operating System command usage for man find

User Commands FIND(1)

NAME

find - search for files in a directory hierarchy

SYNOPSIS

find [-H] [-L] [-P] [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 OPERA-

TORS), 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 seach direc-

tories that are writable by other users), you should read

the "Security Considerations" chapter of the findutils docu-

mentation, which is called Finding Files and comes with fin-

dutils. That document also includes a lot more detail and

discussion than this manual page, so you may find it a more

useful source of information. 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 `!'. 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, any-

way). 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 three

`real' options `-H', `-L' and `-P' must appear before the

first path name, if at all.

-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 SunOS 5.10 Last change: 1 User Commands FIND(1) 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 dis-

covers a symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search, the subdirectory 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 symbolic 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 situa-

tion, 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 exam-

ined (though of course -maxdepth 0 would prevent this).

If more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each over-

rides the others; the last one appearing on the command line

takes effect. Since it is the default, the -P option should

be considered to be in effect unless either -H or -L is

specified.

GNU find frequently stats files during the processing of the

command line itself, before any searching has begun. These options also affect how those arguments are processed. Specifically, there are a number of tests that compare files listed on the command line against a file we are currently

considering. In each case, the file specified on the com-

mand line will have been examined and some of its properties

will have been saved. If the named file is in fact a sym-

bolic link, and the -P option is in effect (or if neither -H

nor -L were specified), the information used for the com-

parison will be taken from the properties of the symbolic link. Otherwise, it will be taken from the properties of

the file the link points to. If find cannot follow the link

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 2 User Commands FIND(1) (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 dereferenced, and

the timestamp will be taken from the file to which the sym-

bolic link points. The same consideration applies to

-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). EXPRESSIONS The expression is made up of options (which affect overall operation rather than the processing of a specific 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 -follow and

-daystart, 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 -fol-

low and -daystart options are different in this respect, and

have an effect only on tests which appear later in the com-

mand 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.

-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. SunOS 5.10 Last change: 3 User Commands FIND(1)

-d A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD,

NetBSD, MacOS X and OpenBSD.

-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

-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 com-

mands 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.

`-maxdepth 0' means only apply the tests and actions to

the command line arguments.

-mindepth levels

Do not apply any tests or actions at levels less than

levels (a non-negative integer). `-mindepth 1' means

process all files except the command line arguments.

-mount

Don't descend directories on other filesystems. An

alternate name for -xdev, for compatibility with some

other versions of find.

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 4 User Commands FIND(1)

-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. Addition-

ally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a `..'

entry linked to that directory. When find is examining

a directory, after it has statted 2 fewer subdirec-

tories 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 com-

mand 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 conditions

that find might encounter when it searches directories.

The default behaviour corresponds to -warn if standard

input is a tty, and to -nowarn otherwise.

-xdev

Don't descend directories on other filesystems. TESTS Numeric arguments can be specified as +n for greater than n,

-n for less than n,

n for exactly n. SunOS 5.10 Last change: 5 User Commands FIND(1)

-amin n

File was last accessed n minutes ago.

-anewer file

File was last accessed more recently than file was

modified. If file is a symbolic link and the -H option

or the -L option is in effect, the access time of the

file it points to is always used.

-atime n

File was last accessed n*24 hours ago. When find fig-

ures 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 direc-

tory.

-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). SunOS 5.10 Last change: 6 User Commands FIND(1)

-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.

-iname pattern

Like -name, but the match is case insensitive. For

example, the patterns `fo*' and `F??' match the file

names `Foo', `FOO', `foo', `fOo', etc. In these pat-

terns, unlike filename expansion by the shell, an ini-

tial '.' can be matched by '*'. That is, find -name

*bar will match the file `.foobar'. Please note that

you should quote patterns as a matter of course, other-

wise the shell will expand any wildcard characters in them.

-inum n

File has inode number n. It is normally easier to use

the -samefile test instead.

-ipath pattern

Behaves in the same way as -iwholename. This option is

deprecated, so please do not use it.

-iregex pattern

Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.

-iwholename pattern

Like -wholename, but the match is case insensitive.

-links n

File has n links.

-lname pattern

File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pat-

tern 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 sym-

bolic 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 direc-

tories removed) matches shell pattern pattern. The SunOS 5.10 Last change: 7 User Commands FIND(1) 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 -wholename.

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.

-nouser

No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.

-nogroup

No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.

-path pattern

See -wholename. The predicate -path is also supported

by HP-UX find.

-perm mode

File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or sym-

bolic). 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 permis-

sion. 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

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 8 User Commands FIND(1) 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 illustrative exam-

ples. If no permission bits in mode are set, this test currently matches no files. However, it will soon be

changed to match any file (the idea is to be more con-

sistent 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 -perm

/mode instead. Trying to use the '+' syntax with sym-

bolic modes will yield surprising results. For exam-

ple, '+u+x' is a valid symbolic mode (equivalent to +u,+x, i.e. 0111) and will therefore not be evaluated

as -perm +mode but instead as the exact mode specifier

-perm mode and so it matches files with exact permis-

sions 0111 instead of files with any execute bit set. If you found this paragraph confusing, you're not alone

- just use -perm /mode. This form of the -perm test is

deprecated because the POSIX specification requires the

interpretation of a leading '+' as being part of a sym-

bolic mode, and so we switched to using '/' instead.

-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 regu-

lar 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) SunOS 5.10 Last change: 9 User Commands FIND(1) `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 differently.

The `b' suffix always denotes 512-byte blocks and never

1 Kilobyte blocks, which is different 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 the

symbolic link is broken. If you want to search

for symbolic links when -L is in effect, use

-xtype.

s socket D door (Solaris)

-uid n

File's numeric user ID is n.

-used n

File was last accessed n days after its status was last changed.

-user uname

File is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).

-wholename pattern

File name matches shell pattern pattern. The metachar-

acters do not treat `/' or `.' specially; so, for SunOS 5.10 Last change: 10 User Commands FIND(1) example,

find . -wholename './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 . -wholename './src/emacs' -prune -o

-print

-xtype c

The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link.

For symbolic links: if the -H or -P option was speci-

fied, 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.

ACTIONS

-delete

Delete files; true if removal succeeded. If the remo-

val failed, an error message is issued. Use of this

action automatically turns on the '-depth' option.

-exec command ;

Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All

following arguments to find are taken to be arguments

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 section for examples of the

use of the `-exec' option. The specified command is

run once for each matched file. The command is exe-

cuted in the starting directory. There are unavoid-

able security problems surrounding use of the -exec

option; you should use the -execdir option instead.

-exec command {} +

This variant of the -exec option runs the specified

command on the selected files, but the command line is built by appending each selected file name at the end; the total number of invocations of the command will be

much less than the number of matched files. The com-

mand line is built in much the same way that xargs SunOS 5.10 Last change: 11 User Commands FIND(1) builds its command lines. Only one instance of '{}' is allowed within the command. The command is executed in the starting directory.

-execdir command ;

-execdir command {} +

Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the

subdirectory containing the matched file, which is not

normally the directory in which you started find. This

a much more secure method for invoking commands, as it avoids race conditions during resolution of the paths

to the matched files. As with the -exec option, the

'+' form of -execdir will build a command line to pro-

cess more than one matched file, but any given invoca-

tion 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 the current directory; otherwise, an attacker can run any commands they like by leaving an

appropriately-named file in a directory in which you

will run -execdir.

-fls file

True; like -ls 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 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 information 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 characters in filenames are handled.

-fprintf file format

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 12 User Commands FIND(1)

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 characters in filenames are handled.

-ok command ;

Like -exec but ask the user first (on the standard

input); if the response does not start with `y' or `Y',

do not run the command, and return false. If the com-

mand is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.

-print

True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a newline. If you are piping the output

of find into another program and there is the faintest

possibility that the files which you are searching for

might contain a newline, then you should seriously con-

sider using the `-print0' option instead of `-print'.

See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about

how unusual characters in filenames are handled.

-okdir command ;

Like -execdir but ask the user first (on the standard

input); if the response does not start with `y' or `Y',

do not run the command, and return false. If the com-

mand is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.

-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 corresponds to the `-0'

option of xargs.

-printf format

True; print format on the standard output, interpreting

`\' escapes and `%' directives. Field widths and pre-

cisions can be specified as with the `printf' C func-

tion. 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 new-

line at the end of the string. The escapes and direc-

tives are: SunOS 5.10 Last change: 13 User Commands FIND(1) \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. \ 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 avail-

able on all systems, due to differences in `strftime' between systems. @ seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT. Time fields: H hour (00..23) I hour (01..12) k hour ( 0..23) l hour ( 1..12) M minute (00..59) SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 User Commands FIND(1) p locale's AM or PM

r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)

S second (00..61)

T time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)

+ Date and time, separated by '+', for example

`2004-04-28+22:22:05'. The time is given in

the current timezone (which may be affected by setting the TZ environment variable). This is a GNU extension. 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) 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) SunOS 5.10 Last change: 15 User Commands FIND(1) 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.

%d File's depth in the directory tree; 0 means the

file is a command line argument.

%D The device number on which the file exists (the

st_dev field of struct stat), in decimal.

%f File's name with any leading directories removed

(only the last element).

%F Type of the filesystem the file is on; this value

can be used for -fstype.

%g File's group name, or numeric group ID if the

group has no name.

%G File's numeric group ID.

%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 multiples 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). SunOS 5.10 Last change: 16 User Commands FIND(1)

%m File's permission bits (in octal). This option

uses the 'traditional' numbers which most Unix

implementations use, but if your particular imple-

mentation uses an unusual ordering of octal per-

missions 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.

%t File's last modification time in the format

returned by the C `ctime' function.

%Tk File's last modification time in the format speci-

fied 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

A `%' character followed by any other character is dis-

carded, but the other character is printed (don't rely

on this, as further format characters may be intro-

duced). A `%' at the end of the format argument causes

undefined behaviour since there is no following charac-

ter. In some locales, it may hide your door keys, while in others it may remove the final page from the novel you are reading.

The %m and %d directives support the # , 0 and + flags,

but the other directives do not, even if they print numbers. Numeric directives that do not support these SunOS 5.10 Last change: 17 User Commands FIND(1)

flags include G, U, b, D, k and n. The `-' format flag

is supported and changes the alignment of a field from

right-justified (which is the default) to left-

justified.

See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about

how unusual characters in filenames are handled.

-prune

If -depth is not given, true; if the file is a direc-

tory, do not descend into it.

If -depth is given, false; no effect.

-quit

Exit immediately. No child processes will be left run-

ning, 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.

-ls True; list current file in `ls -dils' format on stan-

dard 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.

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 func-

tion keys on some terminals). Unusual characters are han-

dled 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

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 18 User Commands FIND(1) 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 direc-

tive 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 direc-

tives %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 arbi-

trary 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.

-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. OPERATORS Listed in order of decreasing precedence: ( expr ) Force precedence. ! expr True if expr is false.

-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 SunOS 5.10 Last change: 19 User Commands FIND(1) 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 use-

ful 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 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 meta-

characters ('*'. '?' or '[]' for example) will match a leading '.', because IEEE PASC interpretation 126

requires this. This is a change from previous ver-

sions of findutils.

-type

Supported. POSIX specifies `b', `c', `d', `l', `p',

`f' and `s'. GNU find also supports `D', representing

a Door, where the OS provides these.

-ok Supported. Interpretation of the response is not

locale-dependent (see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES).

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 20 User Commands FIND(1)

-newer

Supported. If the file specified is a symbolic link,

it is always dereferenced. This is a change from pre-

vious behaviour, which used to take the relevant time from the symbolic link; see the HISTORY section below. Other predicates

The predicates `-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 exten-

sions are not unique to GNU find, however.

The POSIX standard requires that

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 diagnostic message

to standard error and shall either recover its position in the hierarchy or terminate. 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 some-

times optimise away the visiting of a subdirectory which is

actually a link to an ancestor. Since find does not actu-

ally enter such a subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emit-

ting 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

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 21 User Commands FIND(1)

-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 variables.

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.

POSIX also specifies that the `LC_COLLATE' environment

variable affects the interpretation of the user's

response to the query issued by `-ok', but this is not

the case for GNU find.

LC_CTYPE

This variable affects the treatment of character

classes used with the `-name' test, if the system's

fnmatch(3) library function supports this. It has no

effect on the behaviour of the `-ok' expression.

LC_MESSAGES

Determines the locale to be used for internationalised messages. 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.

TZ Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related

format directives of -printf and -fprintf.

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 22 User Commands FIND(1)

EXAMPLES

find /tmp -name core -type 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

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 quote marks to

protect them from interpretation as shell script punctua-

tion. The semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash, though ';' could have been used in that case also.

find / \( -perm -4000 -fprintf

\( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s

Traverse the filesystem just once, listing setuid files and directories into /root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.

find $HOME -mtime 0

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 . -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 SunOS 5.10 Last change: 23 User Commands FIND(1)

other permissions bits set (for example if someone can exe-

cute 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

find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w

These two commands both search for files that are readable

for everybody (-perm -444 or -perm -a+r), have at least on

write bit set (-perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not execut-

able for anybody (! -perm /111 and ! -perm /a+x respec-

tively) EXIT STATUS

find exits with status 0 if all files are processed success-

fully, greater than 0 if errors occur. This is deli-

berately a very broad description, but if the return value SunOS 5.10 Last change: 24 User Commands FIND(1)

is non-zero, you should not rely on the correctness of the

results of find.

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-

butes:

____________________________________________________________

| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |

|_____________________________|_____________________________|

| Availability | SUNWgnu-findutils |

|_____________________________|_____________________________|

| Interface stability | Uncommitted |

|_____________________________|_____________________________|

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.

NON-BUGS

$ find . -name *.c -print

find: paths must precede expression

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [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

That command is of course not going to work. Instead of doing things this way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes:

$ find . -name '*.c' -print

BUGS

The test -perm /000 currently matches no files, but for

greater consistency with -perm -000, this will be changed to

match all files; this change will probably be made in early 2006. Meanwhile, a warning message is given if you do this. SunOS 5.10 Last change: 25 User Commands FIND(1) There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that

the POSIX standard specifies for find, which therefore can-

not be fixed. For example, the -exec action is inherently

insecure, and -execdir should be used instead. Please see

Finding Files for more information. 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

bug-findutils-request@gnu.org.

SunOS 5.10 Last change: 26