a Find FAQ

1. How do I list all entries under the current directory?

   find .

2. How do I list all entries under the '/foo/barr' directory?

   find /foo/barr

3. How do I list all files under the current directory?

   find . -type f

4. How do I list all files under the '/foo/barr' directory?

   find /foo/barr -type f

5. How do I list all directories under the current directory?

   find . -type d

6. How do I list all symlinks under the current directory?

   find . -type l

7. How do I list all files under the current directory that were modified within the last day?

   find . -type f -mtime -1

8. How do I list all files under the current directory that were modified within the last 5 days?

   find . -type f -mtime -5

9. How do I list all files under the current directory that were modified more than 5 days ago?

   find . -type f -mtime +5

10. How do I list all files under the current directory that start with 'asdf'?

    find . -type f -name "asdf*"

11. How do I list all files under the current directory that end in '.html'?

    find . -type f -name "*.html"

12. How do I list all directories under the current directory that start with 'asdf'?

    find . -type d -name "asdf*"

13. On linux, how do I list all files under the current directory quoted?

    find . -type f -printf '"%p"\n'

14. On a UNIX without GNU find, how do I list all files under the current directory quoted?

    find . -type f | sed -e 's/^/"/;s/$/"/;'

15. How do I list all files under the current directory that contain 'ASDF'?

    find . -type f | xargs grep -l 'ASDF'

16. How do I list all files under the current directory that contain the string 'ASDF' even if the some of the file names have spaces?

    find . -type f -printf '"%p"\n' | xargs grep -l 'ASDF'

17. How do I list all '.html' files under the current directory that contains 'ASDF'?

    find . -type f -name "*.html" | xargs grep -l 'ASDF'

18. How do I delete all '.tmp' files under the current directory?

    find . -type f -name "*.tmp" | xargs rm

19. How do make all files under the current directory world readable?

    find . -type f | xargs chmod +r

20. How do make all directories under the current directory world searchable?

    find . -type d | xargs chmod +x

21. How do I list all files that end in '.html' , '.xhtml' or '.txt' under the current directory?

    find . -type f \( -name "*.html" -o -name "*.xhtml" -o -name "*.txt" \)

22. How do I list all entries that are not symlinks under the current directory?

    find . ! -type l

23. How do I list all files that do not end in '.html', '.xhtml' and '.txt'?

    find . -type f ! \( -name "*.html" -a -name "*.xhtml" -a -name "*.txt" \)