FIND(1)

NAME

find − find files

SYNOPSIS

find path-name-list expression

HP-UX COMPATIBILITY

Level: HP-UX/STANDARD

Origin: System V

Native Language Support:
8−bit filenames.

DESCRIPTION

Find recursively descends the directory hierarchy for each path name in the path-name-list (i.e., one or more path names) seeking files that match a boolean expression written in the primaries given below. In the descriptions, the argument n is used as a decimal integer where +n means more than n, −n means less than n and n means exactly n.

−name string True if string matches the current file name. Normal shell argument syntax may be used if escaped (watch out for [, ? and ∗).

−perm onum True if the file permission flags exactly match the octal number onum (see chmod(1)). If onum is prefixed by a minus sign, more flag bits (017777, see stat(2)) become significant and the flags are compared:

(flags&onum)==onum

−type c True if the type of the file is c, where c is b, c, d, p, f, or l for block special file, character special file, directory, fifo (a.k.a named pipe), plain file, or symbolic link respectively.

−links n True if the file has n links.

−user uname True if the file belongs to the user uname. If uname is numeric and does not appear as a login name in the /etc/passwd file, it is taken as a user ID.

−group gname True if the file belongs to the group gname. If gname is numeric and does not appear in the /etc/group file, it is taken as a group ID.

−size n[c] True if the file is n blocks long. If n is followed by a c, the size is in characters.

−atime n True if the file has been accessed in n days. The access time of directories in path-name-list is changed by find itself.

−mtime n True if the file has been modified in n days.

−ctime n True if the file has been changed in n days.

−exec cmd True if the executed cmd returns a zero value as exit status. The end of cmd must be punctuated by an escaped semicolon. A command argument {} is replaced by the current path name.

−ok cmd Like −exec except that the generated command line is printed with a question mark first, and is executed only if the user responds by typing y.

−print Always true; causes the current path name to be printed.

−cpio device Always true; write the current file on device in cpio(5) format (5120-byte records). By default, find will not follow symbolic links that point to directories when this option is specified. The −follow option may be used to follow symbolic links that point to directories.

−follow Always true; causes find to recursively descend symbolic links that point to directories. (This is the default when the −cpio option is not specified.) Not all HP−UX systems support symbolic links.

−nofollow Always true; causes find to not recursively descend symbolic links that point to directories.

−newer file True if the current file has been modified more recently than the argument file.

−depth Always true; causes descent of the directory hierarchy to be done so that all entries in a directory are acted on before the directory itself. This can be useful when find is used with cpio(1) to transfer files that are contained in directories without write permission.

( expression ) True if the parenthesized expression is true (parentheses are special to the shell and must be escaped).

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

−ncpiodevice Same as −cpio but adds the -c option to cpio.

The primaries may be combined using the following operators (in order of decreasing precedence):

1) The negation of a primary (! is the unary not operator).

2) Concatenation of primaries (the and operation is implied by the juxtaposition of two primaries).

3) Alternation of primaries (−o is the or operator).

EXAMPLE

To remove all files named a.out or ∗.o that have not been accessed for a week:

find / \( −name a.out −o −name ′∗.o′ \) −atime +7 −exec rm {} \;

Note that the spaces delimiting the escaped parentheses are required.

FILES

/etc/passwd, /etc/group

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