find(1) — Linux manual page

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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 -- could theoretically be used to
       signal that any remaining arguments are not options, but this
       does not really work due to the way find determines the end of
       the following path arguments: it does that by reading until an
       expression argument comes (which also starts with a `-').  Now,
       if a path argument would start with a `-', then find would treat
       it as expression argument instead.  Thus, to ensure that all
       start points are taken as such, and especially to prevent that
       wildcard patterns expanded by the calling shell are not
       mistakenly treated as expression arguments, it is generally safer
       to prefix wildcards or dubious path names with either `./' or to
       use absolute path names starting with '/'.  Alternatively, it is
       generally safe though non-portable to use the GNU option
       -files0-from to pass arbitrary starting points to find.

       -P     Never follow symbolic links.  This is the default
              behaviour.  When find examines or prints information about
              files, 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

              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
                     optimized form.

              all    Enable all of the other debug options (but help).

              help   Explain the debugging options.

       -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 optimizer 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 optimizer 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 optimizer 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.

              The re-ordering of operations performed by the cost-based
              optimizer can result in user-visible behaviour change.
              For example, the -readable and -empty predicates are
              sensitive to re-ordering.  If they are run in the order
              -empty -readable, an error message will be issued for
              unreadable directories.  If they are run in the order
              -readable -empty no error message will be issued. This is
              the reason why such operation re-ordering is not performed
              at the default optimisation level.

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.

       The -print action is performed on all files for which the whole
       expression is true, unless it contains an action other than
       -prune or -quit.  Actions which inhibit the default -print are
       -delete, -exec, -execdir, -ok, -okdir, -fls, -fprint, -fprintf,
       -ls, -print and -printf.

       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.  If you do not use
              this option, find behaves as if the regular expression
              type emacs had been specified.

       -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 be 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.

       -files0-from file
              Read the starting points from file instead of getting them
              on the command line.  In contrast to the known limitations
              of passing starting points via arguments on the command
              line, namely the limitation of the amount of file names,
              and the inherent ambiguity of file names clashing with
              option names, using this option allows to safely pass an
              arbitrary number of starting points to find.

              Using this option and passing starting points on the
              command line is mutually exclusive, and is therefore not
              allowed at the same time.

              The file argument is mandatory.  One can use
              -files0-from - to read the list of starting points from
              the standard input stream, and e.g. from a pipe.  In this
              case, the actions -ok and -okdir are not allowed, because
              they would obviously interfere with reading from standard
              input in order to get a user confirmation.

              The starting points in file have to be separated by ASCII
              NUL characters.  Two consecutive NUL characters, i.e., a
              starting point with a Zero-length file name is not allowed
              and will lead to an error diagnostic followed by a non-
              Zero exit code later.

              In the case the given file is empty, find does not process
              any starting point and therefore will exit immediately
              after parsing the program arguments.  This is unlike the
              standard invocation where find assumes the current
              directory as starting point if no path argument is passed.

              The processing of the starting points is otherwise as
              usual, e.g.  find will recurse into subdirectories unless
              otherwise prevented.  To process only the starting points,
              one can additionally pass -maxdepth 0.

              Further notes: if a file is listed more than once in the
              input file, it is unspecified whether it is visited more
              than once.  If the file is mutated during the operation of
              find, the result is unspecified as well.  Finally, the
              seek position within the named file at the time find
              exits, be it with -quit or in any other way, is also
              unspecified.  By "unspecified" here is meant that it may
              or may not work or do any specific thing, and that the
              behavior may change from platform to platform, or from
              findutils release to release.

       -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).

              Furthermore, find with the -ignore_readdir_race option
              will ignore errors of the -delete action in the case the
              file has disappeared since the parent directory was read:
              it will not output an error diagnostic, and the return
              code of the -delete action will be true.

       -maxdepth levels
              Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of
              directories below the starting-points.  Using -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).  Using -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.

       A numeric argument n can be specified to tests (like -amin,
       -mtime, -gid, -inum, -links, -size, -uid and -used) as

       +n     for greater than n,

       -n     for less than n,

       n      for exactly n.

       Supported tests:

       -amin n
              File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly n
              minutes ago.

       -anewer reference
              Time of the last access of the current file is more recent
              than that of the last data modification of the reference
              file.  If reference is a symbolic link and the -H option
              or the -L option is in effect, then the time of the last
              data modification of the file it points to is always used.

       -atime n
              File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly
              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 less than, more than or
              exactly n minutes ago.

       -cnewer reference
              Time of the last status change of the current file is more
              recent than that of the last data modification of the
              reference file.  If reference is a symbolic link and the
              -H option or the -L option is in effect, then the time of
              the last data modification of the file it points to is
              always used.

       -ctime n
              File's status was last changed less than, more than or
              exactly 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) by the
              current user.  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 less than, more than or exactly
              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 smaller than, greater than or
              exactly 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 less than, more than or exactly 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 less than, more than or
              exactly n minutes ago.

       -mtime n
              File's data was last modified less than, more than or
              exactly 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 of the file names are removed, the
              pattern should not include a slash, because `-name a/b'
              will never match anything (and you probably want to use
              -path instead).  An exception to this is when using only a
              slash as pattern (`-name /'), because that is a valid
              string for matching the root directory "/" (because the
              base name of "/" is "/").  A warning is issued if you try
              to pass a pattern containing a - but not consisting solely
              of one - slash, unless the environment variable
              POSIXLY_CORRECT is set or the option -nowarn is used.

              To ignore a directory and the files under it, use -prune
              rather than checking every file in the tree; see an
              example in the description of that action.  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 reference
              Time of the last data modification of the current file is
              more recent than that of the last data modification of the
              reference file.  If reference is a symbolic link and the
              -H option or the -L option is in effect, then the time of
              the last data modification 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.  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 by the current user.
              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 less than, more than or exactly 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 kibibytes (KiB, units of 1024 bytes)

              `M'    for mebibytes (MiB, units of 1024 * 1024 = 1048576
                     bytes)

              `G'    for gibibytes (GiB, units of 1024 * 1024 * 1024 =
                     1073741824 bytes)

              The size is simply the st_size member of the struct stat
              populated by the lstat (or stat) system call, rounded up
              as shown above.  In other words, it's consistent with the
              result you get for ls -l.  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 1024-byte blocks, which is different to
              the behaviour of -ls.

              The + and - prefixes signify greater than and less than,
              as usual; i.e., an exact size of n units does not match.
              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 0 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 less than, more than or exactly
              n.

       -used n
              File was last accessed less than, more than or exactly 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 by the current user.
              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.  If a symbolic link is broken
              (because the thing it points to does not exist or the link
              points to itself) then -xtype will behave the same as
              -type.

       -context pattern
              (SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob
              pattern.

   ACTIONS
       -delete
              Delete files or directories; true if removal succeeded.
              If the removal failed, an error message is issued and
              find's exit status will be nonzero (when it eventually
              exits).

              Warning: Don't forget that find evaluates the command line
              as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find
              try to delete everything below the starting points you
              specified.

              The use of the -delete action on the command line
              automatically turns on the -depth option.  As in turn
              -depth makes -prune ineffective, the -delete action cannot
              usefully be combined with -prune.

              Often, the user might want to test a find command line
              with -print prior to adding -delete for the actual removal
              run.  To avoid surprising results, it is usually best to
              remember to use -depth explicitly during those earlier
              test runs.

              The -delete action will fail to remove a directory unless
              it is empty.

              Together with the -ignore_readdir_race option, find will
              ignore errors of the -delete action in the case the file
              has disappeared since the parent directory was read: it
              will not output an error diagnostic, not change the exit
              code to nonzero, and the return code of the -delete action
              will be true.

       -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 it must appear at the end,
              immediately before the `+'; it needs to be escaped (with a
              `\') or quoted to protect it from interpretation by the
              shell.  The command is executed in the starting directory.
              If any invocation with the `+' form 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.  For this reason -exec my-
              command ... {} + -quit may not result in my-command
              actually being run.  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 with
              the `+' form 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 1 KB 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.  This action may not be specified together with
              the -files0-from option.

              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.  This action may not be specified together
              with the -files0-from option.

       -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(3) 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(3) function.

              %Ak    File's last access time in the format specified by
                     k, which is either `@' or a directive for the C
                     strftime(3) function.  The following shows an
                     incomplete list of possible values for k.  Please
                     refer to the documentation of strftime(3) for the
                     full list.  Some of the conversion specification
                     characters might not be available on all systems,
                     due to differences in the implementation of the
                     strftime(3) library function.

                     @      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)

                     F      date (yyyy-mm-dd)

                     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.

              %Bk    File's birth time, i.e., its creation time, in the
                     format specified by k, which is the same as for %A.
                     This directive produces an empty string if the
                     underlying operating system or filesystem does not
                     support birth times.

              %c     File's last status change time in the format
                     returned by the C ctime(3) 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     Print the basename; the file's name with any
                     leading directories removed (only the last
                     element).  For /, the result is `/'.  See the
                     EXAMPLES section for an example.

              %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     Dirname; the Leading directories of the 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 `.'.  For
                     files which are themselves directories and contain
                     a slash (including /), %h expands to the empty
                     string.  See the EXAMPLES section for an example.

              %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 1 KB
                     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.  In general the number
                     of blocks used by a file is file system dependent.
                     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(3) 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 symbolic links:
                     `L'=loop, `N'=nonexistent, `?' for any other error
                     when determining the type of the target of a
                     symbolic link.

              %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, then -prune has no effect.  Because
              -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and
              -delete together.  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

       -quit  Exit immediately (with return value zero if no errors have
              occurred).  This is different to -prune because -prune
              only applies to the contents of pruned directories, while
              -quit simply makes find stop immediately.  No child
              processes will be left running.  Any command lines which
              have been built by -exec ... + or -execdir ... + are
              invoked before the program is exited.  After -quit is
              executed, no more files specified on the command line will
              be processed.  For example,
              `find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit` will print only
              `/tmp/foo`.
              One common use of -quit is to stop searching the file
              system once we have found what we want.  For example, if
              we want to find just a single file we can do this:
                  find / -name needle -print -quit

   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 1003.1-2008, 2016
       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) 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 primaries
              The primaries -atime, -ctime, -depth, -exec, -group,
              -links, -mtime, -nogroup, -nouser, -ok, -path, -print,
              -prune, -size, -user and -xdev are all supported.

       The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!'
       and the logical AND/OR operators -a and -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 optimize 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

   Simple `find|xargs` approach
       •      Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and
              delete them.

                  $ find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f

              Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any
              filenames containing newlines, single or double quotes, or
              spaces.

   Safer `find -print0 | xargs -0` approach
       •      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.

                  $ find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f

              The -name test comes before the -type test in order to
              avoid having to call stat(2) on every file.

       Note that there is still a race between the time find traverses
       the hierarchy printing the matching filenames, and the time the
       process executed by xargs works with that file.

   Processing arbitrary starting points
       •      Given that another program proggy pre-filters and creates
              a huge NUL-separated list of files, process those as
              starting points, and find all regular, empty files among
              them:

                  $ proggy | find -files0-from - -maxdepth 0 -type f -empty

              The use of `-files0-from -` means to read the names of the
              starting points from standard input, i.e., from the pipe;
              and -maxdepth 0 ensures that only explicitly those entries
              are examined without recursing into directories (in the
              case one of the starting points is one).

   Executing a command for each file
       •      Run file on every file in or below the current directory.

                  $ find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;

              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.

       In many cases, one might prefer the `-exec ... +` or better the
       `-execdir ... +` syntax for performance and security reasons.

   Traversing the filesystem just once - for 2 different actions
       •      Traverse the filesystem just once, listing set-user-ID
              files and directories into /root/suid.txt and large files
              into /root/big.txt.

                  $ find / \
                      \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \
                      \( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)

              This example uses the line-continuation character '\' on
              the first two lines to instruct the shell to continue
              reading the command on the next line.

   Searching files by age
       •      Search for files in your home directory which have been
              modified in the last twenty-four hours.

                  $ find $HOME -mtime 0

              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.

   Searching files by permissions
       •      Search for files which are executable but not readable.

                  $ find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print

       •      Search for files which have read and write permission for
              their owner, and group, but which other users can read but
              not write to.

                  $ find . -perm 664

              Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions
              bits set (for example if someone can execute the file)
              will not be matched.

       •      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).

                  $ find . -perm -664

              This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.

       •      Search for files which are writable by somebody (their
              owner, or their group, or anybody else).

                  $ find . -perm /222

       •      Search for files which are writable by either their owner
              or their group.

                  $ 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.  The files don't
              have to be writable by both the owner and group to be
              matched; either will do.

       •      Search for files which are writable by both their owner
              and their group.

                  $ find . -perm -220
                  $ find . -perm -g+w,u+w

              Both these commands do the same thing.

       •      A more elaborate search on permissions.

                  $ 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 or ! -perm /a+x
              respectively).

   Pruning - omitting files and subdirectories
       •      Copy the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omit
              files and directories named .snapshot (and anything in
              them).  It also omits files or directories whose name ends
              in `~', but not their contents.

                  $ cd /source-dir
                  $ find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name '*~' -print0 \) \
                      | cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir

              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.

       •      Given the following directory of projects and their
              associated SCM administrative directories, perform an
              efficient search for the projects' roots:

                  $ find repo/ \
                      \( -exec test -d '{}/.svn' \; \
                      -or -exec test -d '{}/.git' \; \
                      -or -exec test -d '{}/CVS' \; \
                      \) -print -prune

              Sample output:

                  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.

   Other useful examples
       •      Search for several file types.

                  $ 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 \( -type f -o -type d -o -type l \)

       •      Search for files with the particular name needle and stop
              immediately when we find the first one.

                  $ find / -name needle -print -quit

       •      Demonstrate the interpretation of the %f and %h format
              directives of the -printf action for some corner-cases.
              Here is an example including some output.

                  $ find . .. / /tmp /tmp/TRACE compile compile/64/tests/find -maxdepth 0 -printf '[%h][%f]\n'
                  [.][.]
                  [.][..]
                  [][/]
                  [][tmp]
                  [/tmp][TRACE]
                  [.][compile]
                  [compile/64/tests][find]

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.

HISTORY         top

       A find program appeared in Version 5 Unix as part of the
       Programmer's Workbench project and was written by Dick Haight.
       Doug McIlroy's A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts from
       the Programmer’s Manual, 1971-1986 provides some additional
       details; you can read it on-line at
       <https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf>.

       GNU find was originally written by Eric Decker, with enhancements
       by David MacKenzie, Jay Plett, and Tim Wood.  The idea for find
       -print0 and xargs -0 came from Dan Bernstein.

COMPATIBILITY         top

       As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for
       example) used in filename patterns 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
       -files0-from           4.9.0
       -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
       -print0                2.0        POSIX (from Issue 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
       find: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?

       This happens when the shell could expand the pattern *.c to more
       than one file name existing in the current directory, and passing
       the resulting file names in the command line to find like this:
       find . -name frcode.c locate.c word_io.c -print
       That command is of course not going to work, because the -name
       predicate allows exactly only one pattern as argument.  Instead
       of doing things this way, you should enclose the pattern in
       quotes or escape the wildcard, thus allowing find to use the
       pattern with the wildcard during the search for file name
       matching instead of file names expanded by the parent shell:
       $ 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.

       The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok
       action.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       GNU findutils online help:
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/#get-help>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

       Report any other issue via the form at the GNU Savannah bug
       tracker:
              <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils>
       General topics about the GNU findutils package are discussed at
       the bug-findutils mailing list:
              <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-findutils>

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 1990–2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License
       GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
       <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute
       it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       chmod(1), locate(1), ls(1), updatedb(1), xargs(1), lstat(2),
       stat(2), ctime(3) fnmatch(3), printf(3), strftime(3),
       locatedb(5), regex(7)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/find>
       or available locally via: info find

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
       ⟨https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.savannah.gnu.org/findutils.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2024-06-03.)  If you discover 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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