find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [path...] [expression]
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-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 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.
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-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
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).
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-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 output 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.
Expressions 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.
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 performed 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.
The cost-based optimiser has a fixed idea of how likely any given test is to succeed. In some
cases the probability takes account of the specific nature of the test (for example, -type f is
assumed to be more likely to succeed than -type c). The cost-based optimiser is currently being
evaluated. If it does not actually improve the performance of find, it will be removed again.
Conversely, optimisations that prove to be reliable, robust and effective may be enabled at lower
optimisation levels over time. However, the default behaviour (i.e. optimisation level 1) will
not be changed in the 4.3.x release series. The findutils test suite runs all the tests on find
at each optimisation level and ensures that the result is the same.
|
-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. -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.
|
-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
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.
|
-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 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.
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-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.
|
-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 patterns, unlike filename expansion by
the shell, an initial '.' 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, otherwise 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 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.
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.
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-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.
a The access time of the file reference
B The birth time of the file reference
c The inode status change time of reference
m The modification time of the file reference
t reference is interpreted directly as a time
Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for X to be t. Some combinations are
not implemented on all systems; for example B is not supported on all systems. If an invalid or
unsupported combination of XY is specified, a fatal error results. Time specifications are
interpreted as for the argument to the -d option of GNU date. If you try to use the birth time of
a reference file, and the birth time cannot be determined, a fatal error message results. If you
specify a test which refers to the birth time of files being examined, this test will fail for any
files where the birth time is unknown.
|
-nogroup
No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.
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-nouser
No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.
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-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
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
illustrative 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 -perm /mode instead. Trying to use the `+' syntax with symbolic modes will yield
surprising results. For example, `+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 permissions 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 symbolic mode, and so we switched to using `/' instead.
|
-readable
Matches files which are readable. 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.
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-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.
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-samefile name
File refers to the same inode as name. When -L is in effect, this can include symbolic links.
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-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 differently. The `b' suffix always denotes 512-byte blocks and never 1 Kilobyte
blocks, which is different to the behaviour of -ls.
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-true Always true.
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-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
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.
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-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.
|
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
automatically 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
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 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 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 command line is built in much
the same way that xargs builds its command lines. Only one instance of `{}' is allowed within the
command. The command is executed in the starting directory.
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-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 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 `.'; otherwise, an attacker can run any commands they like by leaving
an appropriately-named file in a directory 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
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 specially; 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
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.
|
-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
interpretation of the regular expression itself will be affected by the environment variables
'LC_CTYPE' (character classes) and 'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equivalence classes).
|
-okdir command ;
Like -execdir but ask the user first in the same way as for -ok. If the user does not agree, just
return false. If the command 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 consider using the
-print0 option instead of -print. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how
unusual characters in filenames are handled.
|
-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 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)
k hour ( 0..23)
l hour ( 1..12)
M minute (00..59)
p locale's AM or PM
r time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
S Second (00.00 .. 61.00). There is a fractional part.
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.
%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).
%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 support 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
A `%' character followed by any other character is discarded, but the other character is printed
(don't rely on this, as further format characters may be introduced). A `%' at the end of the
format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no following character. 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 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.
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-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.
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-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.
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-print0, -fprint0
Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output is going to a terminal.
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-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.
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-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.
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-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.
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-not expr
Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
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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.
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expr1 -o expr2
Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
expr1 -or expr2
Same as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
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