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

DESCRIPTION

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

     The options are as follows:

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

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

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

     -X      The -X option is a modification to permit find to be safely used
             in conjunction with xargs(1).  If a file name contains any of the
             delimiting characters used by xargs,  a diagnostic message is
             displayed on standard error, and the file is skipped.  The delim-
             iting characters include single (`` ' '') and double (`` " '')
             quotes, backslash (``\''), space, tab and newline characters.

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

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

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

     -x      The -x option prevents find from descending into directories that
             have a device number different than that of the file from which

     -exec utility [argument ...];
             True if the program named utility returns a zero value as its ex-
             it status.  Optional arguments may be passed to the utility.  The
             expression must be terminated by a semicolon (``;'').  If the
             string ``{}'' appears anywhere in the utility name or the argu-
             ments it is replaced by the pathname of the current file.
             Utility will be executed from the directory from which find was
             executed.

     -follow
             Follow symbolic links.

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

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

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

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

     -links n
             True if the file has n links.

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

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

     -ok utility [argument ...];
             The -ok primary is identical to the -exec primary with the excep-
             tion that find requests user affirmation for the execution of the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     -type t
             True if the file is of the specified type.  Possible file types
             are as follows:
             and there is no such user name, then uname is treated as a user
             id.

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

OPERATORS

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

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

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

     expression -and expression

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

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

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

EXAMPLES

     The following examples are shown as given to the shell:

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

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

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


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

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

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

BUGS

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

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

BSD Experimental                  May 9, 1995                                5