{"id":178,"date":"2020-08-15T20:04:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T01:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/?p=178"},"modified":"2020-08-15T20:04:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T01:04:49","slug":"unix-find-examples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/?p=178","title":{"rendered":"Unix find Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I originally created and posted these online on March 8, 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t\t
  1. To recursively remove all files with a given name starting at the current directory, e.g., files called undo.Z<\/b>, use <\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -name undo.Z -exec rm {} \\;<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  2. To recursively move to the directory ~\/public_html\/cgi-bin\/<\/b> all files belonging to user brezeald<\/b>, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -user brezeald -exec mv {} ~\/public_html\/cgi-bin\/ \\;<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  3. To recursively find all files with the name hosts<\/b> starting at the current directory, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -name hosts -print<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  4. To recursively find all files with the extension .htm<\/b> or .html<\/b> starting at the current directory, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -name "*.htm*" -prin<\/font>t<\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  5. To recursively find all files that don’t begin with a capital letter, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . \\! -name ‘[A-Z]*’ -print<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  6. Find all files, but trim out the relative location information<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\tfind . -exec basename {} \\;\n\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t

  7. To search for the_word<\/span> in the current directory and all subdirectories of the current directory, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\tfind . -type f -exec grep ‘the_word’ {} \\;<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  8. To also print filenames when searching for the_word<\/span> in the current directory and all subdirectories of the current directory, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\tfind . -type f -exec grep ‘the_word’ {} \\; -print
    \n\t\t\t\t <\/font>find . -type f -print | xargs grep the_word 2>\/dev\/null<\/font><\/p>\n\t\t\t <\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t

  9. To only see the file names, use the -l option for grep:<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -type f -print | xargs grep -l the_word 2>\/dev\/null<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t

    The " -type f " option for find indicates that the files should be plain, as opposed to links, directories, etc.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t

  10. To generate a list of all directories, use <\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -type d -local -ls -print > \/tmp\/list.txt<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t

    -type d — only directories
    \n\t\t\t-local — only local
    \n\t\t\t-ls — file statistics (date, size, etc.)
    \n\t\t\t-print — display the results <\/p>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t

  11. Using the GNU version of find, you can limit the depth of the search:<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -type d -maxdepth 4 -print > \/tmp\/list.txt<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  12. To find files that are seven days old, use either of the following (-mtime<\/font> \n is the last modified time of the file):<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -mtime 7 -print
    \n\t\t find . -mtime +6 -mtime -8 -print<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  13. To find files that have not been accessed in seven days, use
    \n\t\t <\/font><\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -atime 7 -print<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  14. To find files or directories if only part of the name is known, e.g., if the directory name contains the word REMOVED, use<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n\t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -name \\*REMOVED\\* -print<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  15. To set the group id bit on all directories, use
    \n <\/font><\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    sudo find . -type d -exec chmod g+ws {} \\;<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  16. Try this one-liner to generate a list of the 10 largest files on the target file system (from http:\/\/www.unixreview.com\/documents\/s=8925\/ur0310e\/<\/a>):<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find \/somefilesys -follow -mount -type f -print | xargs ls -l |\\
    \n\t\t sort -r -n -k 5,5 | head -10<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  17. A version for files with spaces in the names<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find \/somefilesys -follow -mount -type f -exec find {} \\! -type l -print
    \n \\; | perl -ne ‘chomp; ($size) = (stat("$_"))[7]; print "$size $_\\n";’
    \n | sort -nr +0 -1 | head -10 | cut -d’ ‘ -f2- | while read TheFile; do \n
    \n ls -l "$TheFile" ; done | sort -nr +4 -5<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t
  18. Would you like to find file names that contain spaces? Try the following:<\/li>\n\t\t
    \n \t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t \t\t
    find . -type f -print | while read TheFileName; do echo "${TheFileName}"
    \n | awk ‘$NF >= 2’ ; done<\/font><\/td>\n\t\t\t<\/tr>\n \t\t <\/table>\n\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t <\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I originally created and posted these online on March 8, 2000. To recursively remove all files with a given name starting at the current directory, e.g., files called undo.Z, use find . -name undo.Z -exec rm {} \\; To recursively move to the directory ~\/public_html\/cgi-bin\/ all files belonging to user brezeald, use find . -user brezeald -exec mv {} ~\/public_html\/cgi-bin\/ \\; To recursively find all files with the name hosts starting at the current directory, use find . -name hosts…<\/p>\n

    Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brezeale.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}