It is awesome utility provided in Linux/UNIX environment to find any files residing under the OS. We can search for any files, with almost all the attributes a file has attached to it. It comes from “findutils-x.x.x” package, we have covered almost all the find options. This command is generaly found under the path “/bin/”.
Examples:
1. To find the file with name, within specified directory
| $ find / -name file.txt $ find . -name file.txt |
2. To find the file of specified permissions
| $ find / -perm 775 $ find / -perm a+x $ find . -perm 775 (within current directory) |
3. To have at least one write bit set (specific permission)
| $ find / -perm /a+w $ find . -perm /a+w (within current directory) |
4. To find a file which does not have any executable bit set
| $ find / ! -perm /111 $ find / ! -perm /a+x $ find . ! -perm /a+x (within current directory) |
5. To search for a world readable file, at least one write bit and not executable by anybody
| $ find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w ! -perm /a+x |
6. To avoid following the symbolic links
| $ find -p / -name file |
7. To follow the symbolic links
| $ find -p / -name file |
8. Not to follow symbolic links, except while processing the command line arguments.
| $ find -H / -name file |
9. To find the file with specified depth in the directory structure
| $ find -d 2 / -name file |
10. To specify the descend level
| $ find -maxdepth 2 / -name file |
11. To specify the minimum depth level
| $ find -mindepth 4 / -name file |
12. To process each directory’s contents before the directory itself
| $ find -depth / -name file |
Tests:
13. To get the files access n minutes ago
| $ find / -amin 10 |
14. To find files which were access recently than specified file
| $ find / -anewer file.txt |
15. To get file’s whose status was last changed n minutes ago
| $ find / -cmin 10 |
16. To get file’s whose status was last changed more recently than file was modified.
| $ find -cnewer file.txt |
17. To get files whose status was last changed n*24 hours ago
| $ find / -ctime 10 |
18. To get file which is empty or which is either a regular file or a directory
| $ find / -empty |
19. To get the executable files
| $ find / -executable |
20. To get the files from particular file system types ()
| $ find / -fstype type file |
21. To get files whose GID with specified
| $ find / -gid 100 |
22. To get file which belongs to particular group
| $ find / -group SUPPORT |
23. To find the file which is a link having specified content
| $ find / -lname PATTERN |
24.To find the file which is a link having specified content with case insensitive
| $ find / -ilname PATTERN |
25. To find a file with specified name with case insensitive
| $ find / -iname file.txt |
26. To to find a file with inode number
| $ find / -num 11213 |
27. To find a file who has specified number of links
| $ find / -linkns 10 |
28. To find a file which was modified specified minutes ago
| $ find / -mmin 20 |
29. To find a file which was modified last specified hours before
| $ find / -mtime 24 |
30. To find a file with specified name
| $ find / -name file.txt |
31. To find a file which was modified recently that specified one
| $ find / -name |
32. To find a files whose group ID does not correspond to specified files one
| $ find / -nogroup 1231 |
33. To find a files whose user ID does not correspond to specified files one
| $ find / -nouser 501 |
34. To find a file whose name matches shell pattern pattern
| $ find / -path “/mike*” |
35. To find a file whose permissions are exactly as given
| $ find / -perm 777 |
36. To find a file whose permissions are exactly as given
| $ find / -perm -u+w,g+w |
37. To find a file whose permissions would be any of the specified
| $ find / -perm /u+w,g+w |
38. To find files which are readable
| $ find / -readable |
39. To find file whose names matches regular expression
| $ find / -regex z324x |
40. To find file which refers to same inode as name
| $ find / -samefile file |
41. To find files with specified size
| $ find / -size 10b (512 Byte blocks) $ find / -size 10c (Bytes) $ find / -size 10w (Two Byte Words) $ find / -size 10k (KiloBytes) $ find / -size 10M (Mega Bytes) $ find / -size 10G (Giga Bytes) |
42. To find a file with specified type
| $ find / -type b (Block Special) $ find / -type c (Character Special) $ find / -type d (Directory) $ find / -type p (Named Pipe) $ find / -type f (Regular File) $ find / -type l (Symbolic Link) $ find / -type s (Socket) $ find / -type D (Door) |
43. To find files whose numeric ID is as specified
| $ find / -uid 501 |
44. To find file which was accessed last n days ago
| $ find / -used 10 |
45. To find a file which is owned by a specified user
| $ find / -user mike |
46. To find files which are writable
| $ find / -writable |
47. To find files with specified SELinux context
| $ find / -context |
48. To find files and delete them if found
| $ find / -perm 777 -delete |
49. To find files and execute specified command
| $ find / -perm 777 -exec rm -rf |
50. To find files and write their names to specified file
| $ find / -perm 777 -fls file.txt |
51. To print the file in ls format
| $ find / -perm 777 -ls |
52. To find files and run command first asking user to run
| $ find / -perm 777 -ok rm -rf |
53. To find files and print the full file names, followed by new line
| $ find / -perm 777 -print |
54. To find files and print the full file names, followed by null character
| $ find / -perm 777 -print0 |
55. To find files and quit if specified
| $ find / -name 777 -print -quit |
56. It reorders tests to speed up execution.
To optimization level 1
| $ find -0level 0 |
Default optimization level
| $ find -0level 1 |
To perform any -type or -xtype tests are performed after any tests based only on the names of files
| $ find -0level 2 |
To the full cost-based query optimizer is enabled
| $ find -0level 3 |
Debug options
To get the debug option help
| $ find -D help |
To Show the expression tree in its original and optimized form
| $ find -D tree / -name file |
To print messages as files are examined with the stat and lstat system calls
| $ find -D stat / -name file |
To prints diagnostic information relating to the optimization to the expression tree
| $ find -D opt / -name file |
To Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate succeeded or failed.
| $ find -D rates / -name file |
To get the find command version
| $ find -version $ find –version |
To get the find command help
| $ find -help $ find –help |
Related Commands: locate, locatedb, updatedb, xargs, chmod, fnmatch, regex, stat, lstat, ls, printf, strftime, ctime
One thought on “find command with its examples”
Really awesome Santosh… Keep it up !!