FIND(1)                 NetBSD General Commands Manual                 FIND(1)

NAME
     find -- walk a file hierarchy

SYNOPSIS
     find [-H | -L | -P] [-dEhsXx] file [file ...] [expression]
     find [-H | -L | -P] [-dEhsXx] -f file [file ...] [expression]

DESCRIPTION
     find recursively descends the directory tree for each file listed, evalu-
     ating an expression (composed of the ``primaries'' and ``operands''
     listed below) in terms of each file in the tree.

     The options are as follows:

     -H      The -H option causes the file information and file type (see
             stat(2)), returned for each symbolic link encountered on the com-
             mand line to be those of the file referenced by the link, not the
             link itself.  If the referenced file does not exist, the file
             information and type will be for the link itself.  File informa-
             tion of all symbolic links not on the command line is that of the
             link itself.

     -L      The -L option causes the file information and file type (see
             stat(2)) returned for each symbolic link to be those of the file
             referenced by the link, not the link itself.  If the referenced
             file does not exist, the file information and type will be for
             the link itself.

     -P      The -P option causes the file information and file type (see
             stat(2)) returned for each symbolic link to be those of the link
             itself.

     -d      The -d option causes find to perform a depth-first traversal,
             i.e., directories are visited in post-order and all entries in a
             directory will be acted on before the directory itself.  By
             default, find visits directories in pre-order, i.e., before their
             contents.  Note, the default is not a breadth-first traversal.

     -E      The -E option causes regexp arguments to primaries to be inter-
             preted as extended regular expressions (see re_format(7)).

     -f      The -f option specifies a file hierarchy for find to traverse.
             File hierarchies may also be specified as the operands immedi-
             ately following the options.

     -h      The -h option causes the file information and file type (see
             stat(2)), returned for each symbolic link to be those of the file
             referenced by the link, not the link itself.  If the referenced
             file does not exist, the file information and type will be for
             the link itself.

     -s      The -s option causes the entries of each directory to be sorted
             in lexicographical order.  Note that the sorting is done only
             inside of each directory; files in different directories are not
             sorted.  Therefore, `a/b' appears before `a.b', which is differ-
             ent from ``find ... | sort'' order.

     -X      The -X option is a modification to permit find to be safely used
             in conjunction with xargs(1).  If a file name contains any of the
             delimiting characters used by xargs, a diagnostic message is dis-
             played on standard error, and the file is skipped.  The delimit-
             ing characters include single (``''') and double (``"'') quotes,
             backslash (``\''), space, tab and newline characters.  Alterna-
             tively, the -print0 or -printx primaries can be used to format
             the output in a way that xargs can accept.

     -x      The -x option restricts the search to the file system containing
             the directory specified.  Does not list mount points to other
             file systems.

PRIMARIES
     -amin n
             True if the difference between the file last access time and the
             time find was started, rounded up to the next full minute, is n
             minutes.

     -anewer file
             True if the current file has a more recent last access time than
             file.

     -atime n
             True if the difference between the file last access time and the
             time find was started, rounded up to the next full 24-hour
             period, is n 24-hour periods.

     -cmin n
             True if the difference between the time of last change of file
             status information and the time find was started, rounded up to
             the next full minute, is n minutes.

     -cnewer file
             True if the current file has a more recent last change time than
             file.

     -ctime n
             True if the difference between the time of last change of file
             status information and the time find was started, rounded up to
             the next full 24-hour period, is n 24-hour periods.

     -delete
             Delete found files and/or directories.  Always returns True.
             This executes from the current working directory as find recurses
             down the tree.  It will not attempt to delete a filename with a
             ``'' character in its pathname relative to ``''.  for security
             reasons.  Depth-first traversal processing is implied by this
             option.  This can also be invoked as -rm.

     -empty  True if the current file or directory is empty.

     -exec utility [argument ...] ;
     -exec utility [argument ...] {} +
             Execute the specified utility with the specified arguments.  The
             list of arguments is terminated by ``;'' or ``+''.  utility will
             be executed from the directory from which find was executed.

             If terminated by a semicolon (``;''), the utility is invoked once
             per path.  If the string ``{}'' appears anywhere in the utility
             name or the arguments, it is replaced by the pathname of the cur-
             rent file.

             If terminated by a plus sign (``+''), the pathnames for which the
             primary is evaluated are aggregated into sets, and utility will
             be invoked once per set, similar to xargs(1).  If any invocation
             exits with non-zero exit status, then find will eventually do so
             as well, but this does not cause find to exit early.  The string
             ``{}'' must appear, and must appear last.  Each set is limitted
             to no more than 5,000 pathnames, and is also limitted such that
             the invokation of utility does not exceed ARG_MAX.

     -execdir utility [argument ...] ;
             The -execdir primary is similar to the semicolon-terminated
             (``;'') variant of the -exec primary, with the exception that
             utility will be executed from the directory that holds the cur-
             rent file.  The filename substituted for the string ``{}'' is not
             qualified.  Set aggregation (``+'' termination) is not supported.

     -exit [n]
             This primary causes find to stop traversing the filesystem and
             exit immediately if a previous condition was met.  If no value is
             specified, the exit value will be 0, else n.  Note that other
             primaries will be evaluated and acted upon before exiting.

     -false  This primary always evaluates to false.  This can be used follow-
             ing a primary that caused the expression to be true to make the
             expression to be false.  This can be useful after using a -fprint
             primary so it can continue to the next expression (using an -or
             operator, for example).

     -flags [-]flags
             If flags are preceded by a dash (``-''), this primary evaluates
             to true if at least all of the bits in flags are set in the
             file's flags bits.  If flags are not preceded by a dash, this
             primary evaluates to true if the bits in flags exactly match the
             file's flags bits.  If flags is ``none'', files with no flags
             bits set are matched.  (See chflags(1) for more information about
             file flags.)

     -follow
             Follow symbolic links.

     -fprint filename
             This primary always evaluates to true.  This creates filename or
             overwrites the file if it already exists.  The file is created at
             startup.  It writes the pathname of the current file to this
             file, followed by a newline character.  The file will be empty if
             no files are matched.

     -fstype type
             True if the file is contained in a file system of type type.  The
             sysctl(8) command can be used to find out the types of filesys-
             tems that are available on the system:

                   sysctl vfs.generic.fstypes

             In addition, there are two pseudo-types, ``local'' and
             ``rdonly''.  The former matches any file system physically
             mounted on the system where the find is being executed, and the
             latter matches any file system which is mounted read-only.

     -group gname
             True if the file belongs to the group gname.  If gname is numeric
             and there is no such group name, then gname is treated as a group
             id.

     -iname pattern
             True if the last component of the pathname being examined matches
             pattern.  Case insensitive.

     -inum n
             True if the file has inode number n.

     -iregex regexp
             True if the path name of the current file matches the case-insen-
             sitive basic regular expression (see re_format(7)) regexp.  This
             is a match on the whole path, not a search for the regular
             expression within the path.

     -links n
             True if the file has n links.

     -rm     This is an alias for -delete.

     -ls     This primary always evaluates to true.  The following information
             for the current file is written to standard output: its inode
             number, size in 512-byte blocks, file permissions, number of hard
             links, owner, group, size in bytes, last modification time, and
             pathname.  If the file is a block or character special file, the
             major and minor numbers will be displayed instead of the size in
             bytes.  If the file is a symbolic link, the pathname of the
             linked-to file will be displayed preceded by ``->''.  The format
             is identical to that produced by ``ls -dgils''.

     -maxdepth n
             True if the current search depth is less than or equal to what is
             specified in n.

     -mindepth n
             True if the current search depth is at least what is specified in
             n.

     -mmin n
             True if the difference between the file last modification time
             and the time find was started, rounded up to the next full
             minute, is n minutes.

     -mtime n
             True if the difference between the file last modification time
             and the time find was started, rounded up to the next full
             24-hour period, is n 24-hour periods.

     -ok utility [argument ...] ;
             The -ok primary is similar to the semicolon-terminated (``;'')
             variant of the -exec primary, with the exception that find
             requests user affirmation for the execution of the utility by
             printing a message to the terminal and reading a response.  If
             the response is other than ``y'', the command is not executed and
             the -ok primary evaluates to false.  Set aggregation (``+''
             termination) is not supported.

     -name pattern
             True if the last component of the pathname being examined matches
             pattern.  Special shell pattern matching characters (``['',
             ``]'', ``*'', ``?'') may be used as part of pattern.  These char-
             acters may be matched explicitly by escaping them with a back-
             slash (``\'').

     -newer file
             True if the current file has a more recent last modification time
             than file.

     -nouser
             True if the file belongs to an unknown user.

     -nogroup
             True if the file belongs to an unknown group.

     -path pattern
             True if the pathname being examined matches pattern.  Special
             shell pattern matching characters (``['', ``]'', ``*'', and
             ``?'') may be used as part of pattern.  These characters may be
             matched explicitly by escaping them with a backslash (``\'').
             Slashes (``/'') are treated as normal characters and do not have
             to be matched explicitly.

     -perm [-]mode
             The mode may be either symbolic (see chmod(1)) or an octal num-
             ber.  If the mode is symbolic, a starting value of zero is
             assumed and the mode sets or clears permissions without regard to
             the process' file mode creation mask.  If the mode is octal, only
             bits 07777 (S_ISUID | S_ISGID | S_ISTXT | S_IRWXU | S_IRWXG |
             S_IRWXO) of the file's mode bits participate in the comparison.
             If the mode is preceded by a dash (``-''), this primary evaluates
             to true if at least all of the bits in the mode are set in the
             file's mode bits.  If the mode is not preceded by a dash, this
             primary evaluates to true if the bits in the mode exactly match
             the file's mode bits.  Note, the first character of a symbolic
             mode may not be a dash (``-'').

     -print  This primary always evaluates to true.  It prints the pathname of
             the current file to standard output, followed by a newline char-
             acter.  If none of -exec, -exit, -fprint, -ls, -ok, -print0, nor
             -printx is specified, the given expression shall be effectively
             replaced by (given expression) -print.

     -print0
             This primary always evaluates to true.  It prints the pathname of
             the current file to standard output, followed by a null charac-
             ter.

     -printx
             This primary always evaluates to true.  It prints the pathname of
             the current file to standard output, with each space, tab, new-
             line, backslash, dollar sign, and single, double, or back quota-
             tion mark prefixed by a backslash, so the output of find can
             safely be used as input to xargs.

     -prune  This primary always evaluates to true.  It causes find to not
             descend into the current file.  Note, the -prune primary has no
             effect if the -d option was specified.

     -regex regexp
             True if the path name of the current file matches the case-sensi-
             tive basic regular expression (see re_format(7)) regexp.  This is
             a match on the whole path, not a search for the regular expres-
             sion within the path.

     -size n[c]
             True if the file's size, rounded up, in 512-byte blocks is n.  If
             n is followed by a ``c'', then the primary is true if the file's
             size is n bytes.

     -type t
             True if the file is of the specified type.  Possible file types
             are as follows:

                   b     block special
                   c     character special
                   d     directory
                   f     regular file
                   l     symbolic link
                   p     FIFO
                   s     socket
                   W     whiteout
                   w     whiteout

     -user uname
             True if the file belongs to the user uname.  If uname is numeric
             and there is no such user name, then uname is treated as a user
             id (and considered a numeric argument).

     -xdev   This primary always evaluates to true.  It causes find not to
             descend past directories that have a different device ID (st_dev,
             see stat(2) S5.6.2 [POSIX.1]).

     All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be pre-
     ceded by a plus sign (``+'') or a minus sign (``-'').  A preceding plus
     sign means ``more than n'', a preceding minus sign means ``less than n'',
     and neither means ``exactly n''.

OPERATORS
     The primaries may be combined using the following operators.  The opera-
     tors are listed in order of decreasing precedence.

     ( expression )
                   This evaluates to true if the parenthesized expression
                   evaluates to true.

     ! expression  This is the unary NOT operator.  It evaluates to true if
                   the expression is false.

     expression -and expression

     expression expression
                   The -and operator is the logical AND operator.  As it is
                   implied by the juxtaposition of two expressions it does not
                   have to be specified.  The expression evaluates to true if
                   both expressions are true.  The second expression is not
                   evaluated if the first expression is false.

     expression -or expression
                   The -or operator is the logical OR operator.  The expres-
                   sion evaluates to true if either the first or the second
                   expression is true.  The second expression is not evaluated
                   if the first expression is true.

     All operands and primaries must be separate arguments to find.  Primaries
     which themselves take arguments expect each argument to be a separate
     argument to find.

EXIT STATUS
     The find utility normally exits 0 on success, and exits with 1 under cer-
     tain internal error conditions.  If any invokations of ``-exec ... +''
     primaries return non-zero exit-status, then find will do so as well.

EXAMPLES
     The following examples are shown as given to the shell:

     find  /  \!  -name  "*.c"  -print
            Print out a list of all the files whose names do not end in
            ``.c''.

     find  /  -newer  ttt  -user  wnj  -print
            Print out a list of all the files owned by user ``wnj'' that are
            newer than the file ``ttt''.

     find  /  \!  \(  -newer  ttt  -user  wnj  \)  -print
            Print out a list of all the files which are not both newer than
            ``ttt'' and owned by ``wnj''.

     find  /  \(  -newer  ttt  -or  -user wnj  \)  -print
            Print out a list of all the files that are either owned by ``wnj''
            or that are newer than ``ttt''.

     find  /  \(  -newer  ttt  -or  -user wnj  \)  -exit 1
            Return immediately with a value of 1 if any files are found that
            are either owned by ``wnj'' or that are newer than ``ttt'', but do
            not print them.

     find  /  \(  -newer  ttt  -or  -user wnj  \)  -ls -exit 1
            Same as above, but list the first file matching the criteria
            before exiting with a value of 1.

SEE ALSO
     chflags(1), chmod(1), locate(1), xargs(1), stat(2), fts(3), getgrent(3),
     getpwent(3), strmode(3), symlink(7), sysctl(8)

STANDARDS
     The find utility syntax is a superset of the syntax specified by the IEEE
     Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') standard.

     The options and the -amin, -anewer, -cmin, -cnewer, -delete, -empty,
     -execdir, -follow, -fstype, -iname, -inum, -iregex, -links, -ls,
     -maxdepth, -mindepth, -mmin, -path, -print0, -printx, -regex, and -rm
     primaries are extensions to IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'').

     Historically, the -d, -h, and -x options were implemented using the pri-
     maries ``-depth'', ``-follow'', and ``-xdev''.  These primaries always
     evaluated to true.  As they were really global variables that took effect
     before the traversal began, some legal expressions could have unexpected
     results.  An example is the expression ``-print -o -depth''.  As -print
     always evaluates to true, the standard order of evaluation implies that
     -depth would never be evaluated.  This is not the case.

     The operator ``-or'' was implemented as ``-o'', and the operator ``-and''
     was implemented as ``-a''.

     Historic implementations of the -exec and -ok primaries did not replace
     the string ``{}'' in the utility name or the utility arguments if it had
     preceding or following non-whitespace characters.  This version replaces
     it no matter where in the utility name or arguments it appears.

     Support for ``-exec ... +'' is consistent with IEEE PASC Interpretation
     1003.2 #210, though the feature originated in SVR4.

     The -delete primary does not interact well with other options that cause
     the filesystem tree traversal options to be changed.

HISTORY
     A much simpler find command appeared in First Edition AT&T Unix.  The
     syntax had become similar to the present version by the time of the Fifth
     Edition.

BUGS
     The special characters used by find are also special characters to many
     shell programs.  In particular, the characters ``*'', ``['', ``]'',
     ``?'', ``('', ``)'', ``!'', ``\'', and ``;'' may have to be escaped from
     the shell.

     As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names
     and the expression, it is difficult to specify files named ``-xdev'' or
     ``!''.  These problems are handled by the -f option and the getopt(3)
     ``--'' construct.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE                July 19, 2007               NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
