NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXPRESSION | UNUSUAL FILENAMES | STANDARDS CONFORMANCE | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | EXAMPLES | EXIT STATUS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | NON-BUGS | BUGS | COLOPHON

FIND(1)                    General Commands Manual                   FIND(1)

NAME         top

       find - search for files in a directory hierarchy

SYNOPSIS         top

       find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...]
       [expression]

DESCRIPTION         top

       This manual page documents the GNU version of find.  GNU find
       searches the directory tree rooted at each given starting-point by
       evaluating the given expression from left to right, according to the
       rules of precedence (see section OPERATORS), 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 no starting-
       point is specified, `.' is assumed.
       If you are using find in an environment where security is important
       (for example if you are using it to search directories that are
       writable by other users), you should read the `Security
       Considerations' chapter of the findutils documentation, which is
       called Finding Files and comes with findutils.   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         top

       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 the argument `(' 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, anyway).
       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 five `real' options -H,
       -L, -P, -D and -O must appear before the first path name, if at all.
       A double dash -- can also be used to signal that any remaining
       arguments are not options (though ensuring that all start points
       begin with either `./' or `/' is generally safer if you use wildcards
       in the list of start points).
       -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).  Actions that can cause symbolic links to
              become broken while find is executing (for example -delete)
              can give rise to confusing behaviour.  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 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).
       If more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each overrides 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 command line will have been examined and some of its
       properties will have been saved.  If the named file is in fact a
       symbolic link, and the -P option is in effect (or if neither -H nor
       -L were specified), the information used for the comparison 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 (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 symbolic link points.  The same
       consideration applies to -newerXY, -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).
       -D debugopts
              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
              exec   Show diagnostic information relating to -exec,
                     -execdir, -ok and -okdir
              help   Explain the debugging options.
              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.
              search Navigate the directory tree verbosely.
              stat   Print messages as files are examined with the stat and
                     lstat system calls.  The find program tries to minimise
                     such calls.
              tree   Show the expression tree in its original and optimised
                     form.
       -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.  If you use the -fstype FOO predicate and
                     specify a filesystem type FOO which is not known (that
                     is, present in `/etc/mtab') at the time find starts,
                     that predicate is equivalent to -false.
              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.

EXPRESSION         top

       The part of the command line after the list of starting points is the
       expression.  This is a kind of query specification describing how we
       match files and what we do with the files that were matched.  An
       expression is composed of a sequence of things:
       Tests  Tests return a true or false value, usually on the basis of
              some property of a file we are considering.  The -empty test
              for example is true only when the current file is empty.
       Actions
              Actions have side effects (such as printing something on the
              standard output) and return either true or false, usually
              based on whether or not they are successful.  The -print
              action for example prints the name of the current file on the
              standard output.
       Global options
              Global options affect the operation of tests and actions
              specified on any part of the command line.  Global options
              always return true.  The -depth option for example makes find
              traverse the file system in a depth-first order.
       Positional options
              Positional options affect only tests or actions which follow
              them.  Positional options always return true.  The -regextype
              option for example is positional, specifying the regular
              expression dialect for regular expressions occurring later on
              the command line.
       Operators
              Operators join together the other items within the expression.
              They include for example -o (meaning logical OR) and -a
              (meaning logical AND).  Where an operator is missing, -a is
              assumed.
       If the whole expression contains no actions other than -prune or
       -print, -print is performed on all files for which the whole
       expression is true.
       The -delete action also acts like an option (since it implies
       -depth).
   POSITIONAL OPTIONS
       Positional options always return true.  They affect only tests
       occurring later on the command line.
       -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.
       -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.
       -regextype type
              Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and
              -iregex tests which occur later on the command line.  To see
              which regular expression types are known, use -regextype help.
              The Texinfo documentation (see SEE ALSO) explains the meaning
              of and differences between the various types of regular
              expression.
       -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.  If a warning message relating to command-
              line usage is produced, the exit status of find is not
              affected.  If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set,
              and -warn is also used, it is not specified which, if any,
              warnings will be active.
   GLOBAL OPTIONS
       Global options always return true.  Global options take effect even
       for tests which occur earlier on the command line.  To prevent
       confusion, global options should specified on the command-line after
       the list of start points, just before the first test, positional
       option or action. If you specify a global option in some other place,
       find will issue a warning message explaining that this can be
       confusing.
       The global options occur after the list of start points, and so are
       not the same kind of option as -L, for example.
       -d     A synonym for -depth, for compatibility with FreeBSD, NetBSD,
              MacOS X and OpenBSD.
       -depth Process each directory's contents before the directory itself.
              The -delete action also implies -depth.
       -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 starting-points.  -maxdepth 0
               means only apply the tests and actions to the starting-points
              themselves.
       -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 starting-points.
       -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.
       -version, --version
              Print the find version number and exit.
       -xdev  Don't descend directories on other filesystems.
   TESTS
       Some tests, for example -newerXY and -samefile, allow comparison
       between the file currently being examined and some reference file
       specified on the command line.  When these tests are used, the
       interpretation of the reference file is determined by the options -H,
       -L and -P and any previous -follow, but the reference file is only
       examined once, at the time the command line is parsed.  If the
       reference file cannot be examined (for example, the stat(2) system
       call fails for it), an error message is issued, and find exits with a
       nonzero status.
       Numeric arguments can be specified as
       +n     for greater than n,
       -n     for less than n,
       n      for exactly n.
       -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.
       -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 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.   The pattern `*foo*` will also
              match a file called '.foobar'.
       -inum n
              File has inode number n.  It is normally easier to use the
              -samefile test instead.
       -ipath pattern
              Like -path.  but the match is case insensitive.
       -iregex pattern
              Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.
       -iwholename pattern
              See -ipath.  This alternative is less portable than -ipath.
       -links n
              File has n hard 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.  Because the leading
              directories are removed, the file names considered for a match
              with -name will never include a slash, so `-name a/b' will
              never match anything (you probably need to use -path instead).
              A warning is issued if you try to do this, unless the
              environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.  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.
       -newerXY reference
              Succeeds if timestamp X of the file being considered is newer
              than timestamp Y of the file reference.   The letters X and Y
              can be any of the following letters:
              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.
       -nouser
              No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.
       -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
              Find compares the -path argument with the concatenation of a
              directory name and the base name of the file it's examining.
              Since the concatenation will never end with a slash, -path
              arguments ending in a slash will match nothing (except perhaps
              a start point specified on the command line).  The predicate
              -path is also supported by HP-UX find and is part of the POSIX
              2008 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 you 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
              This is no longer supported (and has been deprecated since
              2005).  Use -perm /mode 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.
       -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.
       -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, rounding up.  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.
              The + and - prefixes signify greater than and less than, as
              usual.  Bear in mind that the size is rounded up to the next
              unit. Therefore -size -1M is not equivalent to -size
              -1048576c.  The former only matches empty files, the latter
              matches files from 1 to 1,048,575 bytes.
       -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)
              To search for more than one type at once, you can supply the
              combined list of type letters separated by a comma `,' (GNU
              extension).
       -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.
       -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.
       -context pattern
              (SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob
              pattern.
   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, and (when find is being
              invoked from a shell) it should be quoted (for example, '{}')
              to protect it from interpretation by shells.  The command is
              executed in the starting directory.  If any invocation returns
              a non-zero value as exit status, then find returns a non-zero
              exit status.  If find encounters an error, this can sometimes
              cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may not be
              run at all.  This variant of -exec always returns true.
       -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.  As with
              -exec, the {} should be quoted if find is being invoked from a
              shell.  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.  If any invocation returns a
              non-zero value as exit status, then find returns a non-zero
              exit status.  If find encounters an error, this can sometimes
              cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may not be
              run at all. The result of the action depends on whether the +
              or the ; variant is being used; -execdir command {} + always
              returns true, while -execdir command {} ; returns true only if
              command returns 0.
       -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.xxxxxxxxxx)
                     +      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).  The
                            seconds field includes a fractional part.
                     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 starting-point.
              %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     Starting-point 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 starting-point 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
              %Z     (SELinux only) file's security context.
              %{ %[ %(
                     Reserved for future use.
              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.
       -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.
       -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.
   OPERATORS
       Listed in order of decreasing precedence:
       ( expr )
              Force precedence.  Since parentheses are special to the shell,
              you will normally need to quote them.  Many of the examples in
              this manual page use backslashes for this purpose: `\(...\)'
              instead of `(...)'.
       ! expr True if expr is false.  This character will also usually need
              protection from interpretation by the shell.
       -not expr
              Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
       expr1 expr2
              Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an
              implied -a; 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.
       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 useful 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.
       Please note that -a when specified implicitly (for example by two
       tests appearing without an explicit operator between them) or
       explicitly has higher precedence than -o.  This means that find .
       -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print afile.

UNUSUAL FILENAMES         top

       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
       function keys on some terminals).  Unusual characters are handled
       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
              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 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.
       -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.

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE         top

       For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the
       POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable.  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 metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]'
              for example) will match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC
              interpretation 126 requires this.   This is a change from
              previous versions 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.  Furthermore, GNU find allows multiple
              types to be specified at once in a comma-separated list.
       -ok    Supported.  Interpretation of the response is according to the
              `yes' and `no' patterns selected by setting the `LC_MESSAGES'
              environment variable.  When the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment
              variable is set, these patterns are taken system's definition
              of a positive (yes) or negative (no) response.  See the
              system's documentation for nl_langinfo(3), in particular
              YESEXPR and NOEXPR.    When `POSIXLY_CORRECT' is not set, the
              patterns are instead taken from find's own message catalogue.
       -newer Supported.  If the file specified is a symbolic link, it is
              always dereferenced.  This is a change from previous
              behaviour, which used to take the relevant time from the
              symbolic link; see the HISTORY section below.
       -perm  Supported.  If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not
              set, some mode arguments (for example +a+x) which are not
              valid in POSIX are supported for backward-compatibility.
       Other predicates
              The predicates -atime, -ctime, -depth, -group, -links, -mtime,
              -nogroup, -nouser, -print, -prune, -size, -user and -xdev
              `-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 extensions are
       not unique to GNU find, however.
       The POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:
              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.
       GNU find complies with these requirements.  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 sometimes optimise away the visiting of a
       subdirectory which is actually a link to an ancestor.  Since find
       does not actually enter such a subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid
       emitting 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 -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         top

       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.    This variable
              also affects the interpretation of the response to -ok; while
              the `LC_MESSAGES' variable selects the actual pattern used to
              interpret the response to -ok, the interpretation of any
              bracket expressions in the pattern will be affected by
              `LC_COLLATE'.
       LC_CTYPE
              This variable affects the treatment of character classes used
              in regular expressions and also with the -name test, if the
              system's fnmatch(3) library function supports this.  This
              variable also affects the interpretation of any character
              classes in the regular expressions used to interpret the
              response to the prompt issued by -ok.  The `LC_CTYPE'
              environment variable will also affect which characters are
              considered to be unprintable when filenames are printed; see
              the section UNUSUAL FILENAMES.
       LC_MESSAGES
              Determines the locale to be used for internationalised
              messages.  If the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is
              set, this also determines the interpretation of the response
              to the prompt made by the -ok action.
       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.
              Setting this variable also turns off warning messages (that
              is, implies -nowarn) by default, because POSIX requires that
              apart from the output for -ok, all messages printed on stderr
              are diagnostics and must result in a non-zero exit status.
              When POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just
              like -perm /zzz if +zzz is not a valid symbolic mode.  When
              POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, such constructs are treated as an
              error.
              When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made
              by the -ok action is interpreted according to the system's
              message catalogue, as opposed to according to find's own
              message translations.
       TZ     Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format
              directives of -printf and -fprintf.

EXAMPLES         top

       find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -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 -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -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 punctuation.  The semicolon is
       similarly protected by the use of a backslash, though single quotes
       could have been used in that case also.
       find / \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \
       \( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)
       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 /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
       Search for files which are executable but not readable.
       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 other permissions bits set
       (for example if someone can execute 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 \! -perm /111
       find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w \! -perm /a+x
       These two commands both search for files that are readable for
       everybody ( -perm -444 or -perm -a+r), have at least one write bit
       set ( -perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not executable for anybody (
       ! -perm /111 and ! -perm /a+x respectively).
       cd /source-dir
       find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name '*~' -print0 \)|
       cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir
       This command copies the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but
       omits files and directories named .snapshot (and anything in them).
       It also omits files or directories whose name ends in ~, but not
       their contents.  The construct -prune -o \( ... -print0 \) is quite
       common.  The idea here is that the expression before -prune matches
       things which are to be pruned.  However, the -prune action itself
       returns true, so the following -o ensures that the right hand side is
       evaluated only for those directories which didn't get pruned (the
       contents of the pruned directories are not even visited, so their
       contents are irrelevant).  The expression on the right hand side of
       the -o is in parentheses only for clarity.  It emphasises that the
       -print0 action takes place only for things that didn't have -prune
       applied to them.  Because the default `and' condition between tests
       binds more tightly than -o, this is the default anyway, but the
       parentheses help to show what is going on.
       find repo/ \( -exec test -d '{}'/.svn \; -or \
       -exec test -d {}/.git \; -or -exec test -d {}/CVS \; \) \
       -print -prune
       Given the following directory of projects and their associated SCM
       administrative directories, perform an efficient search for the
       projects' roots:
       repo/project1/CVS
       repo/gnu/project2/.svn
       repo/gnu/project3/.svn
       repo/gnu/project3/src/.svn
       repo/project4/.git
       In this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into directories
       that have already been discovered (for example we do not search
       project3/src because we already found project3/.svn), but ensures
       sibling directories (project2 and project3) are found.
       find /tmp -type f,d,l
       Search for files, directories, and symbolic links in the directory
       /tmp passing these types as a comma-separated list (GNU extension),
       which is otherwise equivalent to the longer, yet more portable:
       find /tmp \( -type f -o -type d -o -type l \)

EXIT STATUS         top

       find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully,
       greater than 0 if errors occur.   This is deliberately a very broad
       description, but if the return value is non-zero, you should not rely
       on the correctness of the results of find.
       When some error occurs, find may stop immediately, without completing
       all the actions specified.  For example, some starting points may not
       have been examined or some pending program invocations for -exec ...
       {} + or -execdir ... {} + may not have been performed.

SEE ALSO         top

       locate(1), locatedb(5), updatedb(1), xargs(1), chmod(1), fnmatch(3),
       regex(7), stat(2), lstat(2), ls(1), printf(3), strftime(3), ctime(3)
       The full documentation for find is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
       If the info and find programs are properly installed at your site,
       the command info find should give you access to the complete manual.

HISTORY         top

       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.
       As of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of
       none.
       Nanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.
       As of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to
       a nonzero value when it fails.  However, find will not exit
       immediately.  Previously, find's exit status was unaffected by the
       failure of -delete.
       Feature                Added in   Also occurs in
       -newerXY               4.3.3      BSD
       -D                     4.3.1
       -O                     4.3.1
       -readable              4.3.0
       -writable              4.3.0
       -executable            4.3.0
       -regextype             4.2.24
       -exec ... +            4.2.12     POSIX
       -execdir               4.2.12     BSD
       -okdir                 4.2.12
       -samefile              4.2.11
       -H                     4.2.5      POSIX
       -L                     4.2.5      POSIX
       -P                     4.2.5      BSD
       -delete                4.2.3
       -quit                  4.2.3
       -d                     4.2.3      BSD
       -wholename             4.2.0
       -iwholename            4.2.0
       -ignore_readdir_race   4.2.0
       -fls                   4.0
       -ilname                3.8
       -iname                 3.8
       -ipath                 3.8
       -iregex                3.8
       The syntax -perm +MODE was removed in findutils-4.5.12, in favour of
       -perm /MODE.  The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since
       findutils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.

NON-BUGS         top

   Operator precedence surprises
       The command find . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print
       afile because this is actually equivalent to find . -name afile -o \(
       -name bfile -a -print \).  Remember that the precedence of -a is
       higher than that of -o and when there is no operator specified
       between tests, -a is assumed.
   “paths must precede expression” error message
       $ find . -name *.c -print
       find: paths must precede expression
       Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D ... [path...] [expression]
       This happens because *.c has been expanded by the shell resulting in
       find actually receiving a command line like this:
       find . -name frcode.c locate.c word_io.c -print
       That command is of course not going to work.  Instead of doing things
       this way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the
       wildcard:
       $ find . -name '*.c' -print
       $ find . -name \*.c -print

BUGS         top

       There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX
       standard specifies for find, which therefore cannot be fixed.  For
       example, the -exec action is inherently insecure, and -execdir should
       be used instead.  Please see Finding Files for more information.
       The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
       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.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the findutils (find utilities) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository 
       ⟨git://git.savannah.gnu.org/findutils.git⟩ on 2017-07-05.  If you dis‐
       cover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or
       you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail
       to man-pages@man7.org
                                                                     FIND(1)

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