where to find commands unix code example
Example 1: find syntax unix
find . -name \*.c -print
Example 2: find . type f in unix
basic 'find file' commands
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find / -name foo.txt -type f -print
find / -name foo.txt -type f
find / -name foo.txt
find . -name foo.txt
find . -name "foo.*"
find . -name "*.txt"
find /users/al -name Cookbook -type d
search multiple dirs
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find /opt /usr /var -name foo.scala -type f
case-insensitive searching
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find . -iname foo
find . -iname foo -type d
find . -iname foo -type f
find files with different extensions
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find . -type f \( -name "*.c" -o -name "*.sh" \)
find . -type f \( -name "*cache" -o -name "*xml" -o -name "*html" \)
find files that don't match a pattern (-not)
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find . -type f -not -name "*.html" # find all files not ending in ".html"
find files by text in the file (find + grep)
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find . -type f -name "*.java" -exec grep -l StringBuffer {} \; # find StringBuffer in all *.java files
find . -type f -name "*.java" -exec grep -il string {} \; # ignore case with -i option
find . -type f -name "*.gz" -exec zgrep 'GET /foo' {} \; # search for a string in gzip'd files
5 lines before, 10 lines after grep matches
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find . -type f -name "*.scala" -exec grep -B5 -A10 'null' {} \;
(see https://alvinalexander.com/linux-unix/find-grep-print-lines-before-after-search-term)
find files and act on them (find + exec)
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find /usr/local -name "*.html" -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find htdocs cgi-bin -name "*.cgi" -type f -exec chmod 755 {} \;
find . -name "*.pl" -exec ls -ld {} \;
find and copy
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find . -type f -name "*.mp3" -exec cp {} /tmp/MusicFiles \;
copy one file to many dirs
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find dir1 dir2 dir3 dir4 -type d -exec cp header.shtml {} \;
find and delete
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find . -type f -name "Foo*" -exec rm {} \;
find . -type d -name CVS -exec rm -r {} \;
find files by modification time
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find . -mtime 1
find . -mtime -7
find . -mtime -7 -type f
find . -mtime -7 -type d
find files by modification time using a temp file
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touch 09301330 poop
find . -mnewer poop
rm poop
find with time: this works on mac os x
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find / -newerct '1 minute ago' -print
find and tar
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find . -type f -name "*.java" | xargs tar cvf myfile.tar
find . -type f -name "*.java" | xargs tar rvf myfile.tar
(see https://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/linux-unix/using-find-xargs-tar-create-huge-archive-cygwin-linux-unix
for more information)
find, tar, and xargs
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find . -name -type f '*.mp3' -mtime -180 -print0 | xargs -0 tar rvf music.tar
(-print0 helps handle spaces in filenames)
(see https://alvinalexander.com/mac-os-x/mac-backup-filename-directories-spaces-find-tar-xargs)
find and pax (instead of xargs and tar)
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find . -type f -name "*html" | xargs tar cvf jw-htmlfiles.tar -
find . -type f -name "*html" | pax -w -f jw-htmlfiles.tar
(see https://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/linux-unix/using-pax-instead-of-tar)